Sometimes my opinions are so strong, I worry they’ll erupt from my body. I try to keep calm, and level my voice as I explain in hopes that they’ll be more well-received. I acknowledged that I don’t even know how much of a place I have to hold such strong views on the issue so I won’t say I need to be the one to make a decision but I have a lot of really strong feelings about the matter and at least need those to be heard before a decision is made.
And it’s not that I got push back, but the universe always has our back when we find the courage to make a leap. What is a hard topic to own as one I have a major investment in becomes easier when a conveniently placed documentary presents itself on TV, making most of my points for me, certainly more eloquently. Sometimes, it’s just the first step that you need to fight for, then the rest follow it’s lead. Sometimes, even, effortlessly.
To the Dicks
Sometimes it seems like girls are expected to write poems about all of the dicks in their lives. So, following trend, being a girl, this one goes out to the dicks:
They tell us to trust the doctors
As if their findings don’t change as often as my mind does
Did you know they – the doctors – spent quite some time believing that infants don’t feel pain?
Did you know that this led to an ongoing practice of performing circumcisions without anesthesia?
Do you know that the process of these circumcisions is to strap the infant, days old, down to a table – white lights hovering above them as they poke and prod at their most sensitive–
what we’re told are our most private, areas –
hoping to encase just enough skin in the contraption –
looks like a hole punch,
looks like the nail clippers we used on the dog,
looks like you could accidentally cut a dick of with that – and you can,
it happens.
You see – at first the babies scream but then, on a long enough time line, with enough poking and prodding and the overwhelm of the initial cuts, the baby falls into this sort of shock.
They go silent.
This has led to some doctors claiming it so painless that the baby just sleeps through it.
Unmoving.
But I’m not fooled.
I can’t peel my eyes off of the documentary on the screen
there is familiarity in the way that baby’s face goes slack
breathing slows
eyes drifting shut, but they’re not quite closed
and I’m not a baby
don’t even have the right parts to be routinely circumcised
but I’ve experienced that giving up hope level of paralyzed
the numbing acceptance that well – I guess this is life
when the boundary of your own body is invaded
when you’re not even safe in your own skin
but that paralysis, being frozen, silent
doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt
scars have been left and the body keeps score
teaching men from infancy that not showing feeling is pure
then being shocked by the epidemic of insensitive jerks
and I can’t help but think of the way everything is connected
and that maybe if we treated people more like diamonds
realized that clarity and purity go hand in hand
realized that the wrong cut can make even the purest diamond seem rough
realized that you can be tough even when you’re transparent
maybe if we treated the men in our lives with the same value
as the stones we ask them to bestow upon us
maybe we’d realize that there’s no need to cut someone down
cut someone up
to find their worth
to call them pure
Much love, until next time.
Madeline May I... 