Soapbox

He didn't recognize me.

When I touched his shoulder and said "Do you know who I am?"
he turned his head, smiled at me and said "Hi"
with no recognition in his eyes.
I am no stranger to concussion,
have seen short term memory loss before,
but there is nothing short-term about me and him.
For 35 years he has known my name
known my body, my joys and fears, my heart
but he just licked his bloody lips and said "Hi"
with the same odd cheerfulness he displays
when the doctor introduces himself
and  fear probed into my heart
sharper and colder than the phlebotomist's needle
penetrated his scraped and bruised right arm.

Outwardly he is a patchwork of shallow scrapes and torn skin
but occult and sinister damage lurks inside:
a spider-web of cracked bones around the eyes
and underneath, swollen folds of grey tissue
surrounding misfiring neurons.
They tell me they're going to do a scan to see
how much is lost, what to expect to come back.
If the scan is good, they'll  keep him 'for observation'
but what I observe now makes my fingers grow cold.
His hands, so nimble andd expressive,
flutter and wave above him in constant, restless motion,
like small birds seeking to escape from this unhappy trauma bay.
I reach for them, need to hold them and him here.
He takes my hand when I catch his- I wonder if it is simple reflex-
and I want to  cling to it, but his hands are bleeding from a dozen places
so I gingerly slip my fingers between his
lean forward and brush them with trembling lips.

"What happened?" he wonders again, apparently in no pain.
"What's going on here?"
I've lost you, and you've  lost me I want to wail.
"You crashed your bike" I offer instead.
"Well, that sucks" he replies cheerfully.
I dab a drop of blood away from his cheek
and whisper "Yes, it does…"

Dedicated to the governor of Pennsylvania, who suggested that women upset at being forced to have an unnecessary internal ultrasound should 'close their eyes',  and to the Georgia legislator who wants to outlaw abortion even for a woman carrying a dead fetus because 'cows and pigs do it all the time' , and to the gentleman in Wisconsin who wants to outlaw divorce and says that women who are abused by their husbands should just 'remember the good times', and… and…. and…. 

 
"Just close your eyes" he said.
Close your eyes and maybe it won't hurt so much.
Maybe you can make the shame go away if you don't have to look at it,
don't have to meet the eyes of the doctor who is ready to violate you,
who is no longer allowed to address your pain and need,
Close your eyes and deal with it because from this point on,
health care for you is nothing more than a power play,
the political blood sport of men, drenched in your own desperate blood.

Close your eyes, ladies, and think of Jesus
who wants you to know that you are a sinner- and a slut
for having dreams beyond the ones given to you by your pastor,
your employer, and your governor.
See, they are worried that you might get an abortion mistakenly
thinking it's a treatment for the flu or something,
eager to brand you a wanton  for having sex at all,
a Jezebel for  enjoying pleasure without consequence…
the way that they get to.

Close your eyes and pretend that you are still a person
with the right to make your own, most intimate decisions about your future,
Close your eyes and remember  when planning your own family
wasn't considered dirty,
when owning your body was still your birthright
and the right to give birth also included the right not to.

Close your eyes and forget that you are supposed to be a mindless object of desire,
to be salivated over and then dismissed,
used by men to sell beer and shoes and laundry detergent,
expected to exist only for their sexual pleasure, reviled for feeling it yourself,
condemned for being what they so determinedly make you: a sexual being.

So come here, little girl, here's a push-up bra, stilettos and a chastity belt
Learn now that sex is something for a man to do to a woman, not actually with her.
Understand that you must grow up to be either a slut, a dyke or a mother…
and a mother, and a mother.
Close your eyes, girls, and enjoy your patent leather Mary Janes and princess dreams
that don't yet end in blood and probes
and congressmen playing doctor behind the statehouse,
insisting that the princess carry even death in her womb, all in the name of life.

Close your eyes and think of your grandmothers, and of their grandmothers
owned by their fathers, traded to their husbands,
needing permission to go to college.
Think of the days when the few  lady-like jobs that existed
were only for those un-natural old maids
unable to join the ranks of the real women doing a woman's real job of having babies.
Think of not even being allowed to learn or to help support yourself and your family,
of depending on a man to feed and clothe you and your children,
your own love and need to protect them a chain and an anchor
that keeps you in the harbor of even a loveless, abusive marriage,
your yards and yards of beautiful sail forever stowed belowdecks,
because the open seas of life is no place for a woman.

Close your eyes, ladies, and think of England,
and of Iran and Afghanistan
where women are chained for their own good, beaten for showing their faces,
stoned for going to school, sewn shut between babies, robbed of the ability to feel passion,
used for a man's desire but allowed none of their own,
receptacles, incubators, cooks and maids.

So close your eyes, and shut your mouths, and be thankful that you live
in such an enlightened, modern land.

The other day I saw a letter in the paper from a man responding to some letter from another reader who apparently had argued that 'good' people should not have to pay for the sexual activity of bad ones in the form of insurance-provided contraception. The second man presented a nice argument about why it is Ok for the government to pay for contraception and pointed out that we all pay for things we don't want, like war. It was a well-written letter, and it missed the point entirely, as most people in this ridiculous and Puritanical fuss over birth control do.

I respond to the "Contraception avoids high costs" letter of March 11th. Mr. Miller sets out well-reasoned arguments, unfortunately, he defeats a straw man and proves that Rush Limbaugh has accomplished exactly what he set out to do.

This is not about the government paying for anything. This is about insurance. Say it with me: Insurance insurance insurance.

Our president is not proposing that the government hand out free birth control pills on streetcorners to wayward college students. He simply says that your health insurance, something you pay for, should cover certain basic health needs. He believes that a woman whose doctor says she needs hormonal treatment for an ovarian condition should not end up having to have that ovary cut out of her body because a group of men believe that their religion should get to control her body. Mr Limbaugh wants you to think about sex videos of coeds instead of women being denied needed medical treatment because of the misogynist rantings of someone's religion.

This was never about how much sex liberals have, or protecting freedom of religion. Rush Limbaugh judged that the battle could be won if he got people to think about it in that way, however, the same way he and others have sucessfully convinced so many that  if their child is able to get treatment for a painful pre-existing (and so formerly excluded) condition… this is somehow evil.
These red herrings are being thrown in our path to drive wedges into society: between left and right, men and women, rich and poor. Because rest assured, the rich will always be able to buy hormonal birth control whether insurance pays for it or not, just as they will be able to get abortions without waiting periods and transvaginal ultrasounds.

This new policy is simply about guaranteeing poor, often married, working-class women the right to get the medication their doctor prescribes them, regardless of their bosses interpretation of the Bible.

Say it one more time, with feeling: Insurance!

We hear it said once again that it is not safe to give a woman control of her own body, that a mere woman must not be allowed to control her own destiny- that such independence in a female is immoral, such liberty is licentious.

For a time it seemed we had defeated this ancient foe, that in the daylight of modern enlightenment, such nonsense was only still muttered  in dark rooms by small, frightened men desperate to turn back time. But  now, like a mob made bold by the setting sun and a lighted torch, they begin to shout it  again in the public square.

And so they say that our daughters' fertility- and thereby their lives- should properly be subject to the whims of their husbands, lovers, employers and abusers and, like unruly livestock, women should not be allowed to choose when to breed. If you have sex, you should get pregnant-– slut!

I do not know why some men are so eager to return to the days when passion and happy sexuality were the province only of men and something no proper woman would  enjoy.  I do not know why they are so determined that sex without risk of pregnancy must be something only men should be allowed to experience.

Perhaps it's that old  fear that a woman free to enjoy sex without physical consequences will choose another, better partner. You know- the way men do.  Perhaps they worry that a woman who is allowed to make motherhood a free and loving choice  rather than an obligation or possibly dangerous burden might start to get ideas… like the idea that her ideas matter, that her education and career doesn't have to be interrupted by constant child-bearing, that she can compete with a man and that maybe there are a few things she'd like to change in this world.

It is being said that a woman, born in blood and beauty, somehow cannot comprehend the reality of new life inside her without the help of a man, cannot possibly judge right and wrong for herself, the way he can.

But we say that a man, born of a woman and begetting his own daughters who  refuses to let them have an equal place in his world is no man.

We have tasted the autonomy that once belonged only to them, and it has not made us want to stop being women, to stop being mothers and wives, stop tending our family gardens.  We only want freedom to make our own decisions. That river has been crossed now, and we will not be pushed back across the Rubicon just because you find our presence on the other side with you inconvenient.

Do not mistake the softer nature of our geography and the nurturing manner of our souls  for weakness of resolve.
Do not think that we will allow you to take from our daughters that which our own mothers fought and suffered and bled and died to give to us, will avert our eyes meekly while you put their bodies, passions and their lives on a leash.

For it is not in the nature of a woman to surrender a child to a predator without a fight no matter how outmatched she may be.
We would die before we would allow you to violate her with your body, with your pinch and tear, your slap and thrust, and  no more will we step aside while you violate her with your laws, with your leering contempt and lecherous statutes, let you play doctor to amputate her rights and cauterize her dignity.

Do not make us choose between our children and you, for that is a contest you will never win no matter what enticements you offer or weapons you bring to bear upon us,
For such is the nature of woman.