Meeah Williams
Begin here:
Why do we agree to write the way they want us to write when they exclude us from their discourse?
Why do we agree to think along the linear, narrative lines they impose on reality when they give us no place in that reality?
Why do I continue to use question marks after these sentences when they aren’t questions at all?
Why do we agree to live in their world when that world is filled with violence, hatred, intolerance, greed, war, exploitation and suppression—when they turn the considerable power of their disdain upon us whenever we make our existence known.
Why do I continue to hit the backspace key. To spell the way they taught me to, using the syntax that was drilled into me.
Why do we use their dictionaries for definitions when we don’t find in it an entry anywhere that properly defines us.
Why do we seek acceptance from the unacceptable.
What makes us stand in line. What makes us accept the “choice” between either/or.
What makes us.
What makes us agree that a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. That my name is such-and-such. That I was born so-and-so on this-or-that date. That I’m this or that gender.
Why do I agree to such madness.
I don’t believe a word of it why do I pretend that I do.
Who’s served, not me.
Why don’t I be what I am. What is there to lose when there is nothing to gain by being what you’re not. Or is there something to gain. Do you really want what there is to gain or is it something you were told you wanted. Do you want what there is to gain by being what you’re not. Is the world they’ve made that wonderful or is it the only one you dare to believe in because they seem to own all the oxygen.
Why do I still feel stung at their rejection when they’ve never accepted me. Why do I still seek their acceptance when it would be nothing but proof that I’ve succeeded in rejecting myself.
Why don’t I be myself as if I had any choice as if I could be anything else. But I do have a choice that’s just the thing there is a choice to be made and it’s the hardest choice of all and it must be made must be made every day every moment word by word and on it everything depends.
You are the only person who can betray you.
Watch yourself closely.
Are you sneaking off already, lips puckered for the ass-kiss, knees ready for the grovel, the right words sweet on your tongue.
Open your hand.
Are the thirty pieces of silver in your palm already.
There is still time to throw them in the dust
Meeah Williams is a writer and graphic artist. Her work has appeared all over the place. She lives in Seattle.