alt. title: narrative cop-outs I am sick of

[odditycollector]

Something pissed me off today. You get a poem about it.

 
the value of daughters

So you would write a story
for me to care about.
I will tell you how.

Draw a man. Use ink. Use words if you have them. Shape him out of clay.
Give him a name, so I may remember him. Tell me he is strong.
Give him a child. Make it a daughter
so I know he is a good man. A man who would stay for a daughter
who would teach and love a daughter
even without a son to bind him.

And keep the daughter young. Old enough to smile for the man you created
(for you created a good man)
but years from learning of opinions
or that she could have one, if it won't mess your story
the one I care about.
And give the daughter pretty curls
and tell me she has her mother's eyes
like all good girls do.

Now. Sharpen your blade. The one in your mind
where you keep your story.
Watch reflections in its steel until you see
the daughter of the man you created
for me to care about

then swing fast. Draw a knife, a crowbar,
a bullet to send through pretty curls.
A car with broken lines.
Or create wolves to tear her
or hands to squeeze her throat
or send her piece by piece in boxes to her father
blood soaking down your paper.
Rape her if you must.

But do it all
between panel, chapter, line
behind the easel.
Turn off the camera
so I do not hear the screams
so I do not mistake a daughter
for something that might have become a human being.

Does he cry, the man you created? He should, if you did your work carefully.
(if you created a good man)
Catch his tears in resin
or ink or words or clay
and string them up around him, fancy ornaments like something interesting
for me to care about.
When you begin your story, I will see them
and turn the pages.

And do not wonder for the daughters.
They hit the ground no harder than their sisters
trampled into dirt or sold for pieces
or left behind before their mother's milk has dried
or drowned or starved or oil burning down their backs
names listed at no grave site.
Those daughters drawn in blood and bone
not ink not words not in a father's tears
unless that father is a good man.

Comments

[astraldream]

Wow. You're amazing.

I'm so sick of this story.

[odditycollector]

Yeah, so'm I. But I guess that is no secret.

I found an angry picture for you today.

[evewithanapple]

Thank you. This needed to be said.

[odditycollector]

Thanks for reading it.

[alchemise]

This is an excellent poem. Thank you for this.

[odditycollector]

I'm glad it worked for you.

[afuna]

Amazing, thank you.

[odditycollector]

I am glad it worked for you...

[allchildren]

I'll toast to that.

[odditycollector]

Getting drunk: perhaps indeed the best option.

[blueswan]

Thank you for your strong and angry words.

[odditycollector]

And thank you for reading them.

[anonymous_sibyl]

Here via blueswan9. This is very powerful and very well written. Thank you for putting into such beautiful and strong words what so many of us have been feeling and thinking.

[odditycollector]

Thanks. I am not especially good at being upset, but hopefully this can do it for me.

[mona]

This is spot-on, powerful, beautiful, and painful in all the most needed ways. Thank you.

[odditycollector]

And thank you for reading.

[nny]

This is awesome, thank you.

[odditycollector]

:)

[etashetamix]

Thank you. Seriously.

[odditycollector]

Thanks for letting me know you liked it.

[aka]

Catch his tears in resin
or ink or words or clay
and string them up around him, fancy ornaments like something interesting
for me to care about.

This creates such a vivid mental image for me. The rest of it, I am trying to block the mental images, because they are just too much, it's all I can do to read the words and not start yelling. That image though. It feels so angry, it's become emotionally detached.

I'm sorry, that's not really very coherent. But this poem is sticking in my head.

[odditycollector]

I'm sorry, that's not really very coherent. But this poem is sticking in my head.
That is an excellent thing to tell someone; it means it *works*.

It feels so angry, it's become emotionally detached.
Yeah. *sighs* Sort of the theme for the whole poem... I'm not sorry exactly that it hurt you, because I sharpened it as best I could, but I wish I never had reason to write it.

[valtyr]

Thank you for sharing this; I found it very affecting.

I don't know if you heard, but the original plan was to kill Mia as well. Editorial prevented them.

[odditycollector]

Thank you for reading.

The rumour I heard was opposite: Robinson nixed editorial's plan to kill Mia. Either way, I am left making flaily hand gestures.

[mithen.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to let you know, I came across this doing monitor_duty just moments after hearing The News, and I nodded grimly, reading it. It's very good and captured how I'm feeling perfectly.

string them up around him, fancy ornaments like something interesting
for me to care about is just perfect--all of it is, really, it captures so well the sense of total betrayal at learning a character with potential that I was stupid enough to care about on her own terms is really just a bit of character development for the character that really matters.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had done pretty well at blocking it out despite having glanced over the comic it happened it, but then a friend IM'd me to talk about it and all the anger came back.

Plus anyway, I am tired of seeing the teeny daughter killed every fucking where to give Our Hero some (cheap) tragic backstory. Usually plus the wife, but. Y'know. This sort of thing works better with sharper focus.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Fuck, who'd they kill THIS time?

...Please don't let it be Lian.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

I, um...

...Hey, you know what I realized today? One of my guilty snacks would probably be excellent Earthling food, being soft-cheese filled bagels from the Proper Montreal Jewish Bagels None Of That Bun With A Hole In It Crap store.

[teaotter.livejournal.com]

I came across your journal totally by chance and saw this and -- I knew immediately what you were talking about, and this is exactly how I feel about it. Thank you for putting it in such eloquent words.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me know!

I was really really angry at what happened, despite not following the relevant books very closely. I am fed up with the whole trope; like, I can't even watch the Mentalist very comfortably.

This became somewhere to store the anger, to keep it sharp for me if I need it, though I'm still having trouble right now letting it go.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

From Cereta's friendslist:

Very powerful words.

(I am just tired of the grim and gritty event-driven comics world. And I honestly think they've collectively forgotten how to write.)

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

They don't need to write anymore, just plug in some nostalgia and shock value. That is what people are there for, after all.

[poisonivory.livejournal.com]

This is...yes. This is exactly it. Thank you.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

Yeah... though would that there was no context for it.

[genarti]

Here via nextian, and oh, how I wish this wasn't true. How I wish this didn't need saying.

But you've said it beautifully, and powerfully.

(I'm not much of a DCU reader; I'd only vaguely heard of this character before the outcry. But the sad thing is, the trope still applies. I too am sick and tired of it.)

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

I don't read much from the section of the DCU she's from, either. But the trope needs to go away.

[(Anonymous)]

This is amazing -- I wish it didn't have to be, but thank you for writing it.

[odditycollector]

Thanks for reading. It's kinda good to know people are still finding this, although I wish it was still less true.

[phoenix64]

I was just pointed to this by sansets. It's amazing and heartbreaking and speaks such a truth.

[odditycollector]

Thanks for reading it.

...Even now, I don't think I've stopped being angry.

[reginagiraffe]

Read this for the first time today, almost 5 years to the day after you posted it. Amazing poem.

And I'm totally furious that NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

[odditycollector]

Yeah. I would have really liked this to be obsolete by now...

[umadoshi]

Here via Cereta. This is deeply upsetting, as it should be, and beautifully written.

[odditycollector]

Thank you.

[muccamukk]

Yeah. This. Also, damn all writers who do that. It makes me so tired.

But you, dear poet. You I like.

[ilyena_sylph]

I remember reading this when it was new.

It makes me so damn angry that this is still ongoing. That this hasn't quit being a thing yet.

(And how has it been five years since we lost Lian so stupidly? Still angry about her, too.)

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

This. Oh, that last stanza is amazing.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

Thanks. And yeah that last part... I remember it making me sick to write, it's not really any kinder on the revisit, is it.