Tuesday, May 19, 2009

An explanation of the prior piece

I'm usually a firm believer that you shouldn't have to explain what you write, but I don't want "A Collective Social Experience" to be taken the wrong way.

The last piece was not an indictment of being pro-choice. In fact, I'm very pro-choice. I was thinking about access to choice, and wanted to explore (and make you think) about how our access to money influences the choices we make. Does that mean a woman who sticks out an unwanted pregnancy is more pious than a woman who takes society's so-called "easy way out"? I don't know. I don't think so, but I've never had to make that choice.

My point is this: I think the piece talks about how access influences choice, but I'm not so sure it doesn't also talk about how choice influences access - that is, a woman whose mother has a child out of wedlock is also more likely to have a child out of wedlock - so our parent's choices influence our choices, whether as a function of wealth, religion, or both.

That's it. I didn't want to delete it, even though I thought about it, but I decided an explanation would be prudent.

A Collective Social Experience

Aborted fetuses and birth control
shield young rich girls
from the fate of their poor counterparts.
Allowing them to go on unfettered,
unrelenting on their path to perfection.

A collective social experience
shared by the affluent, the pretty
and the better off.
An understanding between them
of how close life got to the trailer, or the projects.

A way to control thousands of years
of urges between tall boys
and busty girls.
A way to give the wanted child everything,
including their own chance to do the same.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

The i In Voice

Strain to hear
my small voice
Please.
Waves crash to the shore
At intervals
Drowning. White noise

i am hungry
To find the words
To say what i mean
Far from the land of my birth
With its colorful
Papaya and language
That no longer fits

The dichotomy of the
american dream
i open each text ready
To find the words
my words
Searching for me