Angry Poem, Dammit

In your pretty world there exists
no need for tacky outburst.
Your pretty world is sitting on my head.
My neck hurts, and that pisses me off.

My friends in high school
who were molested as children
got sad, got pregnant, got slit.
They died invisible,
love draining silent from their wrists
and down their jeans for years,
heads wrapped in plastic bags
of public silence:
no one noticed the slow bluing of their faces.
I got angry and angry fed
my head with plots
for survival, revenge, escape.
Angry re-inflated my burst heart
and shot my legs into blur,
refugee from your pretty world,
from that secret suburban war.

But angry makes you uncomfortable.
Sad women make better fashion accessories.
The lie still and take it.
They don't speak up when you fuck up,
don't question your fun.

Angry women know we deserve better.
Angry women demand: connection, comprehension,
time and effort; a right to every emotion.
Angry women feed each other,
artists at passing sustenance
from throat to throat, like birds,
instead of competing for your attention, like children.
Angry women advertise the asshole things you do.
And angry women know when to leave.

You are afraid, poor thing with big eyes.
I know that feeling. Fear exhausts me.
Fear of betrayal, rape, desertion, self-immolation.
At the very least, crude imitation of meaning.
I am lying full of holes on gravel under a hot sky
and a monster called life is standing over me
with a baseball bat.
He always waits 'til I make it to my knees.
I keep getting up.

But you are afraid,
afraid of a woman who feels with the depth and density
of the black parts of oceans,
with the detail and delicacy of
late day sun on the last hanging leaf.
You are afraid of a love that requires work,
and you are afraid of one small woman
speaking her truth.
You are afraid of your own truth.
Aren't we all.

You would have me trade
my survival for your comfort,
and reward me with a coward's affection.
And you wonder,
"Why's she so angry?"

Shared with permission from Secret Sass