Lately I have been increasingly frustrated with the injustices of the world around me and the forceful yet common sexism which hits me everyday and yet every time I try and put my ideas and experiences into words… they fail me.
And isn’t that expected.
How can one describe such a complex and massive issue, that controls every moment of our lives as woman, into a few paragraphs. I don’t think there is anything that exists verbal or physical that can adequately depict the problem that we face everyday.
However, while saying this, I do continue on my journey to try clarify and verbalize the problems I see in a approachable manner but this continues to be a slow process and I am angry now. I am angry and I don’t know what to do.
But I have always believed that flinging your emotional passions into various forms of art has to be productive in some manner so I ventured into the world of stream of consciousness and wrote a poem about how I am feeling.
The whole point is that it remains unedited so please keep in mind that the emotion is more important than the poetic devices. I am no Ingrid Jonker but I have tried my best. Here is a taste of angry-Jemma thrown at poetry (Please let me know what you think).
YOU
Everything
Everything that I want to be
Is dictated, told, created, informed, wanted
By you
Everything I am was decided by you and I cannot be anything and I cannot be nothing without it being your decision
And yet you wave it away
You tell me that I am free and I believe you
But it’s a lie
Because that freedom is still made by you
Not by me
And you don’t get it I scream and I shout and I cry and I pour my words out but they feel so useless
You say you understand
You say ‘you’re different
But you still don’t get it
You still don’t see
And I feel so alone in my quest-
You have each other, this big unquestionable force
‘Awe bru’
And my sisters?
My support?
You got them first and I’m pulling at the knots of their blindfolds but I don’t think I’m strong enough to get them off …
Not yet
I feel so angry, so frustrated, so lost
Don’t you see,
I can’t discover, I cannot create, the smallest parts of my identity still belong to you and so it becomes impossible for me as me to make an impact on the world
I walk and walk but yet I do not move
What should I do…?
For I am just a little girl in ‘a man’s world’
By Jemma Richmond
Plain Old Glasses 