A woman
A sister
A bearer of breasts
Approached me
With passive
Aggression
To tell me
That my breasts
Offended
Her god and
Threatened
Her children
Tempted
Her husband
To sexual sin.
I argued with her
And her husband
For an hour
About the sacred
Nature and power
In my animal body
They
Rebutted me
My obligation
To accept social norms
Regardless of fairness
Or reason.
They disdained me
For having no children
And explained
With contempt
That I could not
Conceive
The great love
That compelled them
Protect these innocent
Ones
From the sight
Of my offensive
Female body
Lying passive
And harmless
Drinking in sun.
They promised me
(Quite gleefully)
Misery
Lest I find
Submission
To their male god
Who murdered his son
In order
To love me
In spite of
My inherently
Sinful
Female form.
They promised me
Prayers to their
Own demon god
And I promised them
Prayers to mine
To my Mother
Who loves us
The way we are
Born
Who inheres to our
Bodies
And infuses each
Animal form
Who makes all beings
Holy
On Earth and
In Heaven.
They promised me Hell
And I wept for their
Small hateful hearts
And their minds
Locked in thrall
To a god
Who hates women
Their own five young
Daughters,
And Natural Law.
And I wept for
The pain
That stood like a wall
Between both our parties:
My surety of their error
Their surety of mine;
The demon I see in their god
The demon they see in mine;
The nothing that changed
In our minds from the
Words we exchanged;
The ease with which I hated
These grotesque
Petty humans
While their joy anticipated
My eventual decline
To the Hell they have created
For any thing or person
who threatens
Their way of mind.
I wept for our human
Illness
Multiplied by billions
I wept for our easy hatred
Our insoluble divisions
I wept from my own deep sickness
Of the mean and all-too-many
I wept for my own not knowing
If our infectious human kind
Will wake up soon, together
Or destroy ourselves
In fighting
To defend our wounded minds.