In Parts

A personal preface to a collection of stories, in free verse

In the past two days two different women told me they were

Raped.

The nonchalance with which this was uttered made me take

pause but only to myself I didn’t want them to think I thought it was bigger than what they, themselves, gave to me.

In a time when myriad women have detailed their own

Handling by the nation’s leader and are called

Liar

Whore

Gold digger

it’s no wonder my friends detonate their truth bombs right in my face without blinking and my reserve to accept this reality is riddled with reticence.

Last winter, an older man, made a pass at me while I had my dog out for a pee.

It had been years since anyone spoke to me in that way.

Primarily because I am in a long-term relationship

Primarily because I am almost forty years old

Primarily because I am off-putting, intimidating

I am tall, broad, heavily tattooed.

Primarily because I am not seeking attention — from anyone, really.

I do not linger in hazy drunken moments.

I’m not scantily clad, never “asking for it” by swaying my hips a little too much by knowing my clout in well-constructed cleavage.

And few women — not none, not all — wake up to look in the mirror any morning and think,

“Today, I am simply a vagina. I am breasts, I am legs and ass alone. I am solely my parts.”

I had my dog out for a pee, in the chill of January in Colorado, and the man was someone casually known around the neighborhood.

We had been in his apartment, bought his wife’s homemade apple butter and passed it out at Christmas to our families.

On occasion, over the years, the man swept snow from my Jeep on winter mornings since he left for work before I did.

We assumed him old-fashioned.

We thought him merely kind and thought ourselves fortunate to have a real “neighbor.”

A younger version of me likely would have thought his pass as par.

Commonplace though with reluctant acceptance the dutiful space most girls and women occupy at least during portions of their lives.

And few men — not all, not none — wake up to gaze down at themselves in the shower and think,

“Today, I am simply a penis. I am pecs, I am legs and ass alone. I am separate in parts.”

Our brains differ our wiring not akin.

But we feel much the same and could help each other be whole if we tried.

~

©DEF, 2019