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

[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.

[umadoshi]

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

[muccamukk]

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

But you, dear poet. You I like.

[odditycollector]

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

[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.)

[odditycollector]

Thank you.

[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.