Tall Trees Catch the Breeze

A poem

When the Time Comes

“AM I THE PATRIARCHY?”

His eyes – I always thought them so beautiful, so spiteful,

defending a rage I could never know.

The woman held a notebook of my wrongdoings, wrongsayings, wrongwritings

sitting next to him, asserting over and over her indifference.

She wears the crystalline mask of The Collusive Woman.

Admittedly, we all wear it sometimes.

Blinding us from seeing the inevitability in front of us.

She may not be next, but her time will come.

It always comes.

“AM I THE PATRIARCHY?”

He asked again, his wrinkled polo shirt.
Men like him can get away with such things.

I rubbed the tiger’s eye stone in my pocket.

My mind mimicking both its swirls and its stillness.

“AM I THE PATRIARCHY?”

A giggle swallowed, just quickly enough for him to miss it.  

This man who confuses power with strength.

Best thing to do with a truck without brakes is to let it keep rolling.

“The patriarchy is a system. We are all affected by it,” I said,

Stepping aside on the road I knew well.

He, careening down the hill, not once taking a moment to notice he has brakes of his own.

The stone pocketed in a suit I would no longer wear.

My feet on pavement I would no longer walk.

A place, once so dear.  

The ignition key clicked on a memory of a poster, hung in my classroom long ago

When things were simpler.

When I was still hiding myself.

“Doing what’s right isn’t always easy, but it’s always right.”

My heart slowed with each turn toward home.

Doing what’s right isn’t always easy

Especially when it looks wrong to everyone else.

“AM I THE PATRIARCHY?”

Only if you want to be.