Alyssa’s Womanifesto
High heels: a conversation about Patriarchal Society
We belong at the kitchen table together;
you asking me about how I've been
as the apron beats me down
and we talked over a cup of coffee.
I was crippled, you didn't believe in it,
and I strained to appeal
why: for you, the June Cleaver of homemakers, the
girl whose husband is her temple,
She's tango;
she's Broadway,
and primetime line-up.
She worships with
her body; she is
the waitress who will percolate to the baking of
apple pie. You loved the thought of
flapjacks, the thought of bracelets, of mops,
of lingerie. And I sat there
in my diamond earrings while you sat
on the edge. I am unequalized. Then it
occurred to me: you would want
a method of hobbling more perfect,
perky, more baby powder fresh, less slovenly,
than a nuclear war. You'd want to
flatten them one by one, Gloria Steinem to
Ashley Judd, with your fingernails. And your shoulder blades
pushed back. I was beginning to fight,
fragrantly of course, only years later. I'll remember
you covered with fruit flies on the front of
your glossy magazine, and your love of making me crawl.
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