This woman’s war
Digital
flare above trenches of sleep,
eyes
tighten at the brightness of the screen
bracing
for the first assault, the numbers by the bell,
the
pixelled envelopes, the blue world
with
its warnings labelled red,
the
morning’s propaganda, last night’s fallen,
the
latest ‘allies’ to go over to the enemy;
the
severed ties, the necessary mutinies,
their
continuous reprisals, our few victories:
then
out the door to meet the tracer
eyes
of haters, chasers, taking bullets
on
the platform and the train,
no
purple hearts in this campaign,
no
medical evacuation
when
you’re standing being stared at in the station:
midnight
or the morning it’s the same.
Get
to work and you’re already bleeding.
Now:
the next wave, voices without end,
your
throat grown ragged, fearing a betrayal,
the
mouths that grin at how they’re doing well
in
a world which set you up to fail
the
moment you were labelled boy
and
ushered into life. A battered mess
by
five-to-five, you’re praying for the grace
to
make the evening run on time,
but
there’s almost always one more ring
before
the clock ticks over,
always
one more little thing
and
now the crowds are rougher
somehow,
or you’re worn down,
waiting
to be back behind
familiar
lines: you slip the ‘phones inside
your
ears so you don’t have to hear
the
laughter, which might not be aimed at you,
but
after the day you’ve been through
it
hurts to hear either way, and anyway,
it’s
dangerous to think you’re ever safe,
dangerous
to trust a smiling face,
a
word of praise, a pair of eyes gone wide
in
what might look like admiration.
Bruises
follow from infatuation
in
the best-case outcome. No love
in
these trenches, no safe rolling
in
this mud, no ecstasy of fumbling
in
the corner of a club that won’t
end
badly for you. Kill the thought
of
love before a dream of love
kills
you. Love isn’t what we struggle for.
For
mere life, we fight a losing war.
