Monday, December 4, 2017

Some mornings I wake up enraged...

okay, MOST mornings. It happens first thing, when I look at the news headlines on my phone, a long list of headlines that send a surge of adrenaline coursing through me when I learn about the men in charge disparaging the poor, the sick, the refugees literally running for their lives,

when I hear about the latest politician or director or comedian--grown men who think it's perfectly A-OK to waltz through a room of fifteen year old girls changing backstage at a beauty pageant or masturbate in front of a woman at work or take a photo of a sleeping woman while they grab the woman's boobs because ha ha, isn't that funny?

the first example, of course, is the president of the United States and half the people living in this country are perfectly fine with this and some of these people are my neighbors and family members and friends, now former friends, because I can draw one stupid line in the sand, but everyone else I am stuck with and so I have to look at their faces and wonder what they can possibly be thinking and what would they say to me when I was fifteen?

But the thing is, I know what they would say to me when I was fifteen because when I was fifteen, when I was thirteen, when I was eight years old, I heard people say it:

You are making a big deal out of this
You need to let it go
Oh, Jody, will you just stop?

The thing is I don't know how to stop waking up angry.

That was my problem when I was eight years old and when I was fifteen, and now, today, this morning. So, if you have any advice I am all ears.

Well, yeah, the obvious. Stop reading the damn news on your phone first thing in the morning.

DONE!

And so I have been reading poems instead. And this morning I clicked on my phone and listened to this one:

https://soundcloud.com/poets-org/june-jordan-poem-about-my-rights


And that is why I am angry today.






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