Betsy McCall

They are coming for me.
All it takes is to be a little different
And to not be ashamed of that difference.
If you don’t hide from them,
They see you as a threat.
Don’t like what they like?
Don’t believe what they believe?
Don’t dress like they dress?
Don’t live like they live?
Then you can’t be allowed to exist,
So fragile is their world.
Any hint of deviating is permission
To see the cracks in their glass house.
It feeds the doubt that threatens their certainty.
Any knowledge of the other is an attack.
Do you think they aren’t coming for you?
Don’t be a fool.
When they are done with me, they won’t stop.
Any difference, no matter how small
Is the same to them.
In an absolutely uniform world,
The slightest variance must beaten down.
They are coming for me, and you.
They are coming for us all.

They tell me I’m going to burn in hell,
And they smile when they say it.
Sometimes they even laugh nervously.
How am I supposed to take this?
I get it from strangers and even colleagues
Who claim to be a friend.
If you don’t respond in that moment,
Later, they will deny it to your face.
They say it so casually,
They have no reason to remember.
They defend themselves by saying
You don’t believe in hell, why does it matter?
But the issue isn’t what I believe.
It’s the message they are communicating to me.
It’s a message that implies I am such an evil person
That I deserve eternal damnation, eternal torment.
It’s not neutral. It’s not compassionate.
It’s a condemnation.
“I’m going to pray for you,” is a bit less extreme,
But still conveys disapproval—it’s not support.
Context is everything.
If you know I don’t believe, why say this to me
Except to disapprove?
If you want to pray, fine, but why tell me?
If I’m not going around saying “Your god is stupid,”
Then why not respect me enough
Not to rub your disapproval in my face?

I am watching you.
There is a scar on my brain that holds me fast,
But you are driving me silently crazy.
I’m at war with myself.
You’ve imprinted on me—or I on you—
My resistance is hollow,
But my paralysis is turned up by 100 degrees.
When you look at me, I jump inside.
The storm in my brain thunders.
Our eyes lock for a split second.
I can’t explain this—the moment is unequaled.
My denial is shallow—there is no error.
Everyone can see.
The numbers I understand better than myself.
For a brief moment—it’s spades and spice,
But like a babe abandoned by her mother,
The brakes you throw up are there to kill me.
How do I tamp down the attraction
When it would lead to such disaster?
It’s a process until I can see past the outer shell.
The fake tenderness is unbecoming,
But seeing past the pretty frame, it shatters like glass.

If you make me talk
To a person on the phone,
Your customer service
Is failing.

I’m drowning in uncertainty,
I’m a slave to the worry—will there be enough?
Enough time? Enough money?
I recognize the abuse, but find no way out.
There is no protection from the rain.
The fear knocks the breath out of me.
I wish to roar against the sting of threat.
Where is my future?
But the bosses are cloistered against the consequences.
It’s not mere opinion to say this is unsustainable.
How is it asking for so much?
To take care of my health?
To plan for old age?
To be faithful to my promises?
To free my mind and more forward?
Instead, to carry the weight behind me.
What if I get sick?
What is more work goes away?
What if my rent goes up?
Warnings go unheeded.
I’ve already been abandoned.
If they thought I had value,
I wouldn’t be here now.

Poetry is prose.
Be serious about whimsy.
Collect gratitude and give it away.
Hide in order to show yourself.
Seize your power and let go.
Sate your thirst so you can want more.
Pain becomes a kind of pleasure
Just to feel.
Turn the world upside down.
Turn summer into a winter storm.
Fill the bath with mud.
We are told to assist ourselves—
But more furtively than that.
Be reborn at your funeral.
An ill-fated destiny
Builds a makeshift mountain.
Our history is our future.
The dull sparkle blinds my eyes.
So much I love to hate.
I absorb your insults so they roll off my back.
Careless nanoseconds
Affect the cause.
So common is your euphemism,
It hits like a fist, not a feather.
This is just a day among the invisible.

You don’t like that word?
People used to say “safe, legal, and rare.”
In a lot of ways, any such procedure is a failure—
A failure of the system, and the imperfection of biology—
Not a failure of the woman.
We have a choice.
We can acknowledge reality, try to get closer to utopia,
OR we can deny reality, descend fully into dystopia,
At the root of the denial is that it empowers women,
And to prevent more of them, we need to empower them more,
Not less.
Women need education.
Women need access to contraception.
Women need to be free from violence against them.
Women need healthcare.
Women need to be believed.
Women need to be trusted.
Women having these things is antithetical to male power.
Women are not just wombs whose only purpose is to make babies.
Women are more than just walking farmland
That men get to plow and harvest.
My decisions, like my body, are my own.
You don’t like my choice?
Don’t compel me—help me avoid the necessity.