Whatever that is left

For strong women

by Marge Piercy

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tip toe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing Boris Godunov.
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels,she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying,it opens
the ducts of her eyes,and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles,and
she goes on shoveling with tears in her nose.

A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating,I told you so,
ugly,bad girl,bitch,nag,shrill,witch,
ballbuster,nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine,why aren't
you soft,why aren't you quiet,why
aren't you dead?

A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not to be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid.She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head,she is trying
to butt her way though a steel wall.
Her head hurts.People waiting for the hole
to be made say,hurry,you're so strong.

A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside.A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth,midwives used to say,and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs.A strong woman is strong
in words,in action,in connection,in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
sucking her young.Strength is not in her,but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

What comforts her is other's loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues,lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain,the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us.Strong is what we make together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

I LOVE this poem. Alot. It reminds me of my mother. Especially stanza four and five.

A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside.A strong woman is a woman making herself strong every morning
while her teeth loosen and her back throbs.

Somehow I am reminded of my mother waking up at 4 am in the morning during school days to tidy up the house, prepare breakfast for us etc. I remember once when I got up early I saw her looking at herself in the mirror, sighing to herself before doing her usual stuff. Bleah. I felt so bad now, for all the horrible things I have done to hurt her.

A strong woman is strong
in words,in action,in connection,in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
sucking her young.Strength is not in her,but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

Again this reminds me strongly of my mother. I realise how much sacrifices she had made for us, yet we are always so unappreciative of her. Sigh. This realisation comes a bit too late huh? I use to think that she had never love me as much as my other siblings but I have recently come to realise that I was wrong all along, because my mother really loves me, but she does not really know how to show it. And you know what's the saddest thing? I AM THE ONE who has been putting up all the barriers. I had stubbornly rejected any attempts she made to get close to me, look down on her for her simple views.(Ah, yes, I was an arrogant snob, but I'm trying to change ok?) And in return she begins to think that it's all hopeless and I hate her etc etc. Bleah. I hope it's still not too late to patch things up again.

I want her to know how important she is to me.

The recent incident seem to have torn off a bit of me, and from it spill all my past anger, hatred, and paranoia which I had accumulated over time. I find myself having to confront to events that had happened to me before that angered me so much, and hurt me so deeply, things that I had kept them lock up somewhere under the layers of defenses I had put up to protect myself from further pain. It's like someone had just open the Pandora's Box in me, and it pains me still to have such flashes of memories or emotions coming at me everyday while I tried to act normal and engross myself in studying for the prelims. Memories of how my mother had blamed me for her problems, all the things that were said to me, memories of been humiliated in school, by jealous relatives, of being bullied, being wronged and misunderstood...Gosh. No wonder I turn out to become the horrible kid I am today. Haha. Now the problem seems so much smaller when it's written down.

"Stop living in your past. It's over already. Learn to move on!" Said a friend to me yesterday.

Hmmm...well, I'm really trying to look to the future, but I think I have to figure out how to get out of this first. I think I'm really traumatised by THAT incident. For days already I will always have this same horrible dream. It will always begin with a particular classmate crying, and I will be trying to approach her to apologise but my path will be blocked by the persons involved in THAT incident who will give me that fierce accusing stare while telling me what a horrible person I am, how insincere, should be alone etc etc. Or it will be dreams of trying to ask for something but getting ignored, or being shouted at for being a unrepentive loser. Sigh. I havent been sleeping well so far, and I have even resort to keeping myself awake for as long as possible so that I will get a dreamless sleep. I know it sounds stupid, to be so affected by dreams, but somehow it's disturbing me alot. Well, I guess those persons involved should be feeling pretty happy by now, if they know how much that incident had affected me. =(

Like I have said earlier, that incident seem to have torn off something out of me, exposing me to my worst fears and weaknesses, forcing me to see things which I thought I had shut them out earlier, in short, the weak, pathetic me. Sigh. It's like my mind is constantly struggling with opposing viewpoints. One side of me is telling me to curl myself up into a ball at some dark corner right now, ignoring everything else that involves people, believing in only myself,while taking time to mend the big gaping hole and trapping those past horrors back into that secret box. The other side of me is offering a more horrifying option. To LET GO. To face up to my past, to acknowledge all the past hurt and anger, and then let them go. Forget about trying to repair the damage done, but rather let them be a reminder of my own weakness and vulnerability. In short, open myself up and start anew.

Hmmm, the first path looks really inviting, because it will keep me safe I suppose, and I will be in control of myself. But I will end up being the ultimate paranoid weirdo, never coming out of my past. So I think I will look to the second option, though I admit that it's a very big step to take and I'm kinda scared by it too. Because taking the second path will means that I will be allowing myself to every possibilities, and not only will I be unable to control what is going to happen,(which is one of my worst fears actually) I will also be exposing myself to all the hurt and whatever that might occur. Argh. That will really need alot of courage. Like ALOT.

But I have also come to see that the second path offers me something which the first one will never give, hope. Besides, I believe in taking on challenges head on too. Like how someone's favourite song goes " what have you got to lose, which ever path you choose", I think that I really have nothing to lose at this point. Haha. I dont what to end up in the future a lonely grumpy old woman feeding my hamsters while thinking of all the What ifs. XD

Heh. Now I'm feeling so much better, after rambling like a schizophrenic on this blog. I should have done this earlier, it will have save me from all the horrible nightmares and increase my study time too. Haha. Everything seems so unnecessary now. Bleah. Now there's only two days to go and I have only covered only two literature books and a bit of history! Geez. I better go.

Strong is what we make together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

Give me strength, and the courage that I need.