At the tender age of 6
The pastor I saw every Sunday-
The one with a booming voice
And a blinding Cheshire grin-
Spoke from a leather-bound book
that seemed far too heavy for his hands.
The honey-soaked iron
Of his words were more than enough
To breathe fealty into a girl
Who did not yet know death
Or fear
Or shame.
The sweetness that veiled his rotten claims
Hooded my young heart
in the same false stickiness
That coated the heart of my mother
And her mother before her.
Women are the rib of man!
Designed to complete him
In all his divine essence—
A helper, the pastor said!—
A gift from God
And a blessing to Eden.
By age nine,
I only spoke when spoken to
And learned to cross my legs
At the knee
To honor the body which would one day
Belong to my husband.
I learned the temple that housed
The holy spirit of God
And the nuance of my personhood
was chewed gum
no one would desire
after use.
I decided to press my school uniform
And wear lace hair bows
To decorate the body
I had grown to know as an object—
A piece of gum not yet chewed.
My mother believed herself to be gum already chewed.
A broken thing only a merciful God could love.
And I understood her.
At twelve,
I was a broken thing too.
Lost, hurt, and desperate to hear God
The way the pastor’s wife claimed
To hear Him.
I prayed as if my clasped hands
Could save me from the inferno
If I just pressed them together hard enough.
In my prayers,
I begged God to show me
How to want a man
And the picket-fence existence our pastor told me
Was the only path to purpose.
But God never told me
How to recover from the chronic shrinking
Of my body
(USED GUM, USED GUM, USED GUM!)
Or the desire to share love
With a woman.
When a man hurt me for the first time,
God did not hold his strike.
Am I not the rib of man?
No, I am NOT the rib of man.
I am woman.
In the mirror, I see the face of every woman
Ever born before me.
Who were tested,
Worn as thin as stretched tapestry
By the church and the patriarchy.
I see the beauty,
Not the brokenness,
Of my mother
And her mother
And her mother.
Until Eve:
The first woman to abandon tradition.
Ahorita, the unity of all souls
Is God to me.
I am just as much God as the meager ant
Or the mighty lion;
I AM NOT CHEWED GUM!
I am a fraction of the Universe
Experiencing Itself for the first time,
Crying out like a baby for its bottle.
My God cannot fit inside the tight walls
Of a church with stained-glass murals
Or the fragile pages of pew hymnals;
And most certainly, my God
Cannot fit inside the perfect picket fence
I once begged for.
I no longer press my clothing
And force bows into my hair,
Ignoring el dolor de cabeza.
I am more than the rib
Ellos me obligaron a ser.
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