When Did It All Begin?

A Prose-Poem For All Those Who Fight For Reproductive Justice

When did it all begin? The realization that the country was no longer under the control of those to whom it had been promised by God?

Perhaps a long, long time ago, in some smokey room behind a church—or the staid living room of a wealthy plantation owner—or a secret meeting of the men of the town council—or a tavern of men, drink loosening their anger—or the troubled brain of one man—or a thousand—sleeping next to their wives.

Ironic, when you think about it, that the babies we had—babies of slaves, babies of immigrants, babies of depressed middle-class housewives, babies both desired and others forced into the world—babies that God and Nature had declared were women’s role to produce—would cause so much trouble?

No matter. That word ”equality”—a calm abstraction created by fevered men whose beliefs trailed behind their eloquent words, their desire to make revolution—could always be nullified. You just had to be crafty, covert, exploiting all opportunities. You could count on the lulling deceptions of “progress.” You could count on the unwitting (and sometimes not unwitting) collusion of the sellers, the headline-makers, the too-busy-ness of ordinary people working their jobs, the niceness of your political opponents.

And when the most promising opportunity emerged—in the figure of a demonic idiot/genius who knew the magic words—“You don’t have to take this any more”—you made him your president.

How convenient that the woman he ran against was everything you despised, how delicious it was to turn her into a witch. How willingly, how eagerly the politicians and the newspapers and the social media helped you along! How useful that they all now seem to have forgotten that she predicted everything that has happened.

We are all so, so tired. We spent out lives counting on things—knowledge, facts, law, the struggle for justice and humanity—that are not just radically imperfect (we always knew that) but as fragile as a teardrop.

We don’t know how to move forward in this morass. We will have to live with it, nonetheless, and persist—and do our best.