It is one of those questions that elicits no heartfelt response
except perhaps one of growing uneasiness in my own skin,
a painful sensitivity to crawling bugs that nobody else can see,
a reactionary burqa thrown on in shame and not religious affiliation –
and yet you know, so why do I explain?
It’s not so much unrest with myself as much as disgust with
the institution of it all, the idea of it all, with you all
and your need to make a war where war should not exist.
Oh, you all are wonderful – men and women, both –
and neither is better than the other and neither will ever be,
so do not force me to pick a side or have an opinion,
lest I revert to the devil’s advocate and damn you all.
I dare not say that which I feel truer every passing second,
for scapegoats’ bleats sound very similar to those of slaughtered lambs
and slacktivism runs rampant among the ignorant.
Oh! you all are great! but not as men and women –
as people with souls whose twinkling laughter carries on the wind.
Gender wars? I pity them and those that foolishly subscribe,
thinking that they will make a difference in a world
that needs a different kind of difference.
Yet you pity me! for I told you once about this sacred belief
in half-whispered, hushed tones behind a cover of silence,
steadily growing rouge with the conviction that perhaps war is right,
and we are wronged, and my sacred beliefs are not rational.
Darkling I lay with the black light comforting
and your voice failing to reassure – fall quickly, then! and dare not judge!
Yet you do, but how can I feel differently,
given my affinity for overt sensationalism?
I am quite the same as you are with these hormones raging,
but at least I know where to stop,
so don’t deplore me for being irrational;
people are contradictions and logic lies
in perfect discord with steadfast wildness –
a chaos of emotions and increasing entropy.
A burqa thrown on in shame . . . you’d know better than most.
I say this with no mal intent; the truth speaks plainly, even when people don’t.
Oh! you understand too well, so how do I explain?