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January 28, 2008, 07:40 PM ET
FLASHBACK: Undergraduate Journal, 1/28/78
Pry Me Loose
Remind me how I hate this part, this checking in to see if I am loved.
Tell me about time wasted, about how women’s lives through centuries have been lost because of shadowed afternoons turning into long-dark evenings the sneaking heart devouring as if eating cake right from the box.
Put an elbow to my ribs, hiss in my ear, drive spiked heels into my foot, poke a stick into my spine. (Pain is better.) Just don’t allow me to sit, useless, avoiding eye contact with the smirking clock.
Pull me away from the mailbox, the telephone. It gives me pictures of myself meaner than an ugly mirror. And less forgiving.
Remind me: life goes on whether I wait or run to class. That class is what I am supposed to do. And what I am supposed to have.
Remind me that a woman weeping because no call has come is who I left home to leave behind.
Yell to me that men despise women who wait, chasing the one flying to class, to her own work, away.
Remind me: a cat’s eyes follow the object in motion and ignore the lap that offers stillness using it instead as a platform from which to leap.
Tell me.
And again.
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