Control (thoughts in progress...)

Today's pet peeve (more to come, time allowing)

Why is this sentence so incredibly difficult for some men to swallow: "Please teach me how to do it?" I was blessed with a dad who taught, but so often I run into men who seem unduely invested in them knowing and me needing. I swear they will put their bodies between me and the task to prevent my seeing how it's done, and then act (key word: act) all offended when I keep coming back with the same need.

Now, in fairness, "could you do it for me" comes more easily to me, as well. This is an old dance, and I've had my moves, too. But it's gotten very old. I'm tired of it. But there are going to be changes. I will keep forcing the words "please teach" out of my mouth, and whether the response is that I learn peer-to-peer or that the Wizard's curtain gets ripped and he's exposed in his manly gutchies, I don't care.

Whitewashing

““Why do you look like that?”
she says, lip curled up like she smells something bad.
I give the answer the White Coats told me,
 let it roll off - sassy - hoping she may scold me
or even hold me, yeah, like that’s gonna happen
“I always felt this way. I was just hiding it.”
Smack.
“I see” says the lip.
“I think I liked it better like that, please.”
Right back at me so quick,
not missing a beat.
I retreat, stung, and freeze
And it comes clear.
Appearances are what we’re treating here.
Not feelings. Not needs.
Well, not about me.
I am well-mannered and well-churched, well-educated and well-off
and now I am, well, embarrassing.
With that pain visible on my porcelain face
putting a kink in my porcelain smile
In that moment it became clear
that my status in the world dictates even control of my eyes.

My eyes

If eyes are the windows to the soul
Mine were to be frosted,
with stick-on lilies-of-the-valley,
whatever the cost was
to make me a Good Girl

And I learned.
I learned “I’m doing much better, thank you.”
I learned charming and cute and harmless and mild
Be a sweet child
I learned how, with only my eyes,
those same eyes that betrayed us,
to soothe good folks’ fear that my depth of feeling might be contagious
I learned perfect nothingness with a side order of a slight stupid smile,
girl-next-door style
I can call up a twinkle in my eye
faster than a blink
lest you think you got in.
My eyes dance like Melissa Fucking Gibert.
Sparkle and grin

And the Nice Boys came for me at the college White Ball
And my eyes twinkled at them across the hall
And when they asked me to dance, I say
“it’s my privilege.”
And when they took me into the woods after the dance to show me their manliness, I say softly
“it’s my privilege,”
And I was Pleasant and Sweet and Mild and Accommodating,
and never showed the daggers in my eyes.