By Christine Stark
I can’t write nothing
Beautiful. I am expected to be that way because I am a girl writer and we are supposed to have some sort of lock on pretty things. I don’t own no box and I ain’t got no lock.
That
was picked a long time ago and no way can I be Beautiful now. I am what everyone hates.
Which
makes me silent. Like I don’t want to talk. Why should I talk when all I hear is negative?
Ugly
whore is what I hear. It picks my lock and breaks my box. I got a broken box.
Pressure
is what I feel. To be pretty wear dresses write forgiveness. I don’t forgive nobody for breaking my box.
Not
mother. Not father. Not father’s friends. Not the people in the world who won’t let me talk real in my voice who say I got to talk this way about these things and not my way about what I know: broken boxes.
Can’t
write Beautiful. Stupid people shove language rules down my throat like father and his friends. Stupid people try to make me shut up.
People
say trust. Talk. They act like a flower all beautiful and soft say they’ll listen. But they lie.
Trust
is stupid. See a music box with a dancing girl on top? Spins in a circle on its tip toes. I step on it. Broken box.
Christine Stark is a writer, artist, speaker, and activist of European and American Indian ancestry. She is also a survivor of prostitution and pornography. She lives in Minnesota.
Also See: Pimping: The World’s Oldest Profession by Kathleen Barry in this edition of On The Issues Magazine.
Also See: The Poet’s Eye
Two Views by Minnie Bruce Pratt and Erin Whifield in this edition of On The Issues Magazine