in//tergeneration//al

Photo by Mel Poole on Unsplash

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He says, I always hear sad things about your people

what about the happiness, too, and I say: my cousins are dying -

but they are not dying, they are dead

men

walking

and the last week, another one fell down

and I have forgotten how to mourn

I have forgotten

how it feels to let grief rest in my lap just for a while

not coiled up against my ribs

I say: I was born into your civilised thinkpieces where my body is just another point of your discussion -

do you too know another woman, and another, and another whose body never belonged to her

she had to lease it back

piece by piece

I wonder if it was enough

or was it just another place for all the things we mustn’t talk about

to keep safe

I say: it has been two hundred years -

though it took less than thirty to silence the voices of the generations before us

more effectively than ripping the tongue from their head

while you made us watch parent and child learn how to live without each other

and now you are shocked that these are the lessons we teach our children

but then, even survival is a weapon and you know this as you take aim

Our happiness is not for you, I say, and I am sorry that you do not feel our joy

until it has been worked and shaped and painted up like a trinket that you keep in a box on a shelf

and I am tired

I am not selling what you are buying

I am not for sale

any more

and if a smile does not reach your heart

if you cannot feel us through your sadness

if you cannot feel us without your love

then you are missing out

and I am not sorry, but that. is sad