You abhor (as He did)
what You taught
(was my fate, failed, to replicate?)
Me to be,
what threatened Him,
mandated My
flesh as reparation: why
do you hate
My sangfroid self-possession,
My cowboy boots and patchouli and the
things that make Me laugh,
the ways I own my Self?
Who or what triggers your own hate?
In what ways has hate from others shaped your views and behavior?
What happens when we direct hate inward?
I’m having trouble connecting to this prompt. The work I’ve been doing in therapy has led me to a place of acceptance; I’ve let her go, the one who should have protected me, the one who’s grown more like Him with every passing year. Hate isn’t an emotion I experience, or at least, it’s not a word I use to describe things I feel strongly about. But it did call forth some central confusions of my earlier life:
You’re fat, unattractive, non-ideal; also, you are desired as a possession.
Your intellect is your single redeeming quality; also, your peers are justified in rejecting you for it, maybe try to dumb it down, be less intimidating?
Think for yourself, speak up, speak out, have the answers, achieve, accomplish; also, never question or seek help or be different from those you were meant to model.
As a woman it is your responsibility to Be Anything You Want to Be because you can; also, nothing about the ways you are specifically female, feminine, woman, are to be celebrated, or even accepted.
You are all wrong as you are; also, we own you.
You exist for everyone, except yourself.
I know this isn’t a unique experience; the narrow parameters of acceptable ways to be, the rigid definitions of success… so much of it stems from the eastern European Jewish culture in New York, just a generation or so born on American soil. Throw some ‘70s feminism into the mix, and I think a lot of these mixed messages may sound familiar. Or maybe not. It’s still something I’m trying to understand, as much so I don’t repeat history as to puzzle out the past.
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