evening : girl
By Gabrielle Brant Freeman
It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!
I Most of the women I know sleep with a weapon. A crowbar between the headboard and the bed, a hammer just under the mattress. Truth? We’ve been women all our lives. Baby, we know our misogyny. Our trust has a honed edge, always woke. Because we’ve lain awake, insomnia as much a weapon as a curse, listening in the dark, a mass of sibilant shadow, lain awake in our beds listening for the floorboard creak, the debate raging in our heads. It’s safe now, trust. But. We know everything’s a weapon. Best learn the truth early. Sweetheart? Wake up. Your mouth is full of teeth. II You bite. You kick. You scream. This is a truth we teach our daughters. I feel like I am just now waking up. This America says girl babies turn from children to objects in a minute. Weaponized bodies overnight. As I tuck my pre-teen into bed, I wonder exactly how much misogyny it took for me to reach middle age with a mess of defensive lessons right behind my eyes. Don’t trust any man. Keys between your fingers to gouge. Best stay sober. Yell fire, not rape. Our boy babies wake one sudden morning as licensed weapons. Each and every one, somebody’s baby. It’s true. Every morning, mothers wake their babies, lock and load for the bed that has been made. III Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Papa’s gonna miss the point. The mockingbird’s voice is a weapon for which a diamond ring is no substitute. I am a grown woman. I am a little girl awake in the dark tucked in to my bed and quiet. Something lurks in the dark, and my bed crouches. My ears are trained to hear my babies’ breathing, to hear each distinct footfall. I am awake in my own bed in my own house, mistress to fear. Papa’s gonna teach you a truth: the weapon that you know is better than the weapon you miss. Evening is to girl as silence is to truth. They tell you you better hush? Baby, choose your weapon.
Gabrielle Brant Freeman is an award-winning poet and artist whose poetry has been published in many journals including Barrelhouse, The Rumpus, Scoundrel Time, Shenandoah, storySouth, SWWIM Every Day, Waxwing, and Whale Road Review. Most recently, Gabrielle’s work was featured along with three other poets in a choreopoem titled "A Chorus Within Her" at Theater Alliance in Washington ton DC. She teaches at East Carolina University, and she lives with her two awesome kids in Eastern North Carolina.
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Oof. Right in the solar plexus--in the best sort of way. This line, especially:
"Sweetheart? Wake up. Your mouth is full of teeth."
What a take this is! No flattery in this. it is raw and perhaps justified. I see where all this is coming from. Any woman would see what I see in all of this and more with more precision.
Good read!