Eve’s Protest

Men insist I shouldn’t use my body to conquer
them when men have been using me
to look at loneliness less directly. I solve
their endless wars; I’m a rack to hang
headless hats. Is it lunacy or resilience
when something breaks but we keep on 
pushing through it? Like the body, becoming sacred 
is an act of love or self-deceit. Just look at Adam 
wrenching out his rib for me. Things haven’t changed. 
Lonely people are still desperate and busy
being loud about it. I would know. 
I’m shapeless as a fledgling flattened 
having surrendered all my bones. 
Look, all I wanted was someone 
I could show my wretchedness to, someone 
who would be there, loving. Or else, I wanted
to feel winter coming and not feel like an animal 
who’d forgotten to wake up. Do I really have to say it? 
Even the sequoia tree’s leaves will redden 
to ash, proving nature and God are good 
at showing us all the ways we’re wrong. 
Tell me, what woman hasn’t been 
tempted, porous—only wanting
what she wanted. Do you blame me, Lord?
I’m only doing what you’ve done. Made a man
suffer then surrender before I let him love me.
If I was wrong to die for pleasure, so be it. 
If I was wrong to make my man aware of his body 
the way wind is aware of its shapelessness
only after a locomotive blows through a tunnel 
and cleaves its loud nothing into more
billowing nothing, then I accept 
what damage, brightness I’ve caused. 
I know I’ve said this already 
but I mean it: Once, I was good. 
Now, standing by the pier, the sky opens up
in late-night light like a scab unwilling to close 
and I admit, part of me is still like you, Lord. 
Some days, I’m tired. Some days, all I want is to 
eradicate the earth. Instead, a man I love enters me 
slow as light stabbing its way through to morning. 
O God, don’t refute this. I know your rage
is fueled by jealousy and your jealousy fueled 
by sadness. You wish you could hold a body 
like this and understand what I mean when I say
it was worth it. All of it. Yes, it was worth it. 
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