February

Sometime this winter, I began to face the remaining hours of my day like a reluctant, but hardened warrior.

If I must hold these water buckets, arms outstretched, I must.

I told myself I was like Mulan. Even though I know she was turned into a concubine by the emperor after the war, in the actual historically accurate version.

I think parts of me have known for a long time. A long, long time.

In January of this year, I'd begun to have dreams.
And I blamed it on the Mormon fundamentalist story I'd been reading.

In my dream, my husband told me that he understood I was unhappy
that he had another wife.
But that he was a righteous disciple of God
Deserving of these benefits.
That I was desperate enough to not lose him
Or our child.
So, I would adjust.

It was just a dream.

I told myself. 

Even as
The Facebook Messenger women began to drop.
Around me.
and I heard them thudding.
And bouncing.
Into view. 
As I FaceTimed with a child
Saying goodbye
In the most unglorious of ways.
Telling him, it was all my fault.

I have known. I have always known. That men who do not love themselves, cannot love another. The news of Sherman Alexie being disgusting to women struck home hard. And when I read his apology. I thought of his wife. I thought of his wife. I thought of his wife.

So many of us.

Weather.

Abuse and betrayal.

After incineration and rebirth.

And we just stare at the contents of our refrigerator one more time, telling ourselves to eat.

Because men with trauma.

Lord help men with trauma.

I swear.

So many.

Seem to think.

Their trauma.

Makes them worthy of a receptacle.

A female receptacle.

And so many of us, proud women. We carry it. We nurture it. We hide it. We excuse it. Because, womankind, we have generations of our own. Native women even more so.

I have been searching for my anger.
I have been digging for it, convinced it must still be there, somewhere.

I imagine these men with trauma, who write brilliant books, and sing beautiful songs, and tell stories about Katrina, bursting forth from our collective sacrifice, like new seedlings.

And we can decompose, into the earth, telling ourselves, it was sacred work. Birthing others. Becoming dirt again.

I despise our wisdom.

Our lack of ego.

Womankind.

We are so right. We are so fucking right. Every cheek we turn. Every child put first. Every indignity measured against a cosmic sense of oneness and beauty and possibility and love and beautiful words.

We are so on point.

I don't want to be anything else.

But I wish to be the manure for a worthy cause. I wish to be used for something that will not be inevitably stunted. I wish to find more honesty, in myself. Because I have known. And I knew. Not the things I thought I did. But more than I was willing to face.

Resignation became my toothpaste and shampoo, and the cold feeling of my feet when I'd forgotten socks before bed in my empty house.

There was a time when I knew the moment for righteous indignation and refusals and new beginnings. And I did not have to search, for where in my heart, I could still find anger.
I will remain grateful even if it has come late - better than that it never came at all. 

I wish to return to being a woman who wishes the days were longer.

A woman whose days are
Not just duty. Or stubbornness. Or hope. Or desperation. Or a feeling that is just like the color of cold oatmeal, with the same kind of sticky chunks that are miserable to swallow.

But, joyful.

Because this life has inched toward becoming just too damn much less.
Than whatever it was I was supposed to be doing here.