by Cara-Julie Kather
Today was heavy and angry. The beginning of my day was soaking wet with thoughts of you. Today I talked to a friend. The end of my day is warm and mad.
You published a poem about me. How nice. I knew for a while, but I never made it through reading it and I never wanted to fully admit to myself that this is both about me and directed at me.
Man* has done this for a while now. Writing women. Telling women. As so often the case in patriarchy, the brutal is ever so mundane: a man abuses a woman, and he writes and rewrites her in the process. The telling is the violence accompanying the violence. The telling is a necessity to the abuse and the abuser. It might seem like just another degradation, but it is more than that. These retellings and re-writings of women are integral to any form of abuse. And they are integral to patriarchy as a system.
I hesitate to continue writing because I do not feel like I have something new to say. What I have to say is what so many women, so many feminists have been saying and writing for what feels like at least two eternities. I am so sad. But I feel Donna Freitas pounding in my chest, urging me to take back the narrative stolen from me. I hear Audre Lorde who reminds me there are no new ideas, there are only new ways of making them felt. I feel Helene Cixous pulling my hands to the keyboard, urging Woman, why don’t you write? Write! Writing is for you. It is for me. It is for us, who feel we have been re-told only to be used up one more time in yet another way. Only to be humiliated yet again while being urged to believe this is romance, this is love. Who wrote those terms and imprinted their brutal set of rules on this society, imprinted those brutal rules on our tiny souls?
In your poem you say I am losing myself in a time that is actually so light. You are naming the time of our encounters. You say it was actually light. But I got lost because I did not understand the lightness. And I wonder, why do you get to decide what light is. You seem to know this so well. So well, it must be a word made by you.
I thought our encounters were quite dark. At one point I thought you might kill me. There were many things making me think it is not an unlikely scenario. You forced me to have sex with you more times than I could count then or now. And there it is: your poem saying it was actually light. How very interesting this is. How well it must work out for you to be the keeper of the word light.
I am not the keeper of any words. Historically women are not keepers of words, and I am woman. And I do not believe in keeping. I believe in moving. Very far away from you for example. But also, I believe in moving through and with words. I will not take your word from you, don’t worry. You can keep it.
It was light, then. And I did not understand. What else? You are the poison, you write. Are you the keeper of this word also? Do you keep those words locked with you somewhere? Or is the keeping of words part of the social role of man?
May I ask, why did you pick the poison? May I ask, why – to echoe Taylor Swift – you did not spit me out?
I believe patriarchy makes man the keeper of the word poison. She made me do it. She seduced me. She poisoned me. How powerful it must be to be the keeper of this word ridding oneself of responsibility. I am not familiar with the feeling. Woman is no keeper of words. Though we have many. But it is because we made them and continue making them. I made many words with my friend tonight. She makes some of the most wonderful words I have ever met. I love her for it.
So, I, the poison, did not understand how light everything was. What else? You are my second I, you write. What happens when man is the keeper of the word you and the word I? How does it feel to be the keeper of the you and the keeper of the I?
I wonder how it feels to showcase all these words you are the keeper of. It looks to me like you are a circus director showing off all the poor animals you keep. I wonder if it feels like nothing at all because being brutal is normal in a system such as this one.
When we met, I had just left school and my family home. Both had many stories that made me feel so very wrong. You came and told me I am entirely right, but that it is something only you can see. You entangled us so. All my No’s had already left my vocabulary by the time you asked me sexual favors. Because who was I to say No to you who is also me and who is the only one who sees me?
How sexual it must be to be the keeper of the word you and the keeper of the word I. How sexual it must be to be a man.
So, you see me as yourself, but I am the poison, and I don’t recognize the light. What else? I must escape, you write. How interesting. I did not hold you. I also did not invite you.
What else? Can you not see that you are disappearing? I am not disappearing. You might not see me over all those words.
What else? You walk on broken glass into the bottomless. I am not surprised you are the keeper of the word broken too. And also, the keeper of the bottomless, the worthless?
Further you write: Oh, she cries, oh, she cries, oh, she cries. According to all your words I cry because I cannot recognize the light.
Let me ask you, who are you to say what light is?
*Crucially, Man here does not refer to a gender, but rather to a masculine socialization, a social role, and a mode of enacting power. Similarly, Woman can refer to any person whose life and experiences are or have been at some point shaped by the social role of Women.