Private Rivers~ a variation of currents along the sandbars of female existence

What if the fear of solitude is stronger than the pull of attraction?
why do smart women endure dumb behavior
how much will a wife endure to prop up a dream that has long been deferred?
who would willingly consent to being lonely rather than alone?
where does such a creature of a certain age
unlearn to be a molded folded properly scolded woman
in this perpetual self-annihilating culture
limbs strewn across pages
compromised, emaciated, epilated
vacuumed, waxed, airbrushed
gender defying, prepubescent grownups
hungry for another fix of diet powder to quell the conscious of soul
or better yet, another cupcake to redirect the anger

but of all the glorious things to focus on in this world of women
– why this diatribe, why now?
I’ve ranted enough on this topic
it feels like a speech
hashed and rehashed
with original variation
in relevant conversational intervals
so why am I so compelled?

what is equity, diversity, inclusion
if we don’t embrace these traits within equity in our mind
diversity of our bodies
including ourselves in our good deeds

no matter how many homes we own
children we raise
worthy causes we embrace
global art projects we mount
stages we grace
companies we run
lives we change

there are still lives that stand under such brutal scrutiny
that I am forced to write again and again

a friend guides me to a website devoted to botched and long-worn cosmetic surgeries
she tries to show me others
but one is too many
a graveyard of mangled flesh
the mishaps, aftermaths, permanent bruises, slips from tuck, implant migrations
the promises to self broken

when it is over I turn off my computer
but I can’t shut out what I see
I lay in bed and my eyelids replay the visuals of the day
which along Mendocino’s rugged, wooded, expansive sky, edge of earth shores
usually provide a nightly zoetrope of awe
but not this night, instead inhospitable hospital hell invades my dreams
and I wake to the dull ache of this poem
a raging internal debate about the sanctity of the Hippocratic oath
and the beloved faces of women I adore
now on the verge of paying someone to shoot botulism in their creases
suck out some flesh
or beta test a new fangled scalpel thing on their crows feet

it isn’t about choice, but choosing
just because we can
doesn’t mean we have to
age or die – that’s all we get
no matter how hard we try
to convince the body otherwise

sure, we can become smooth mono expressions
and website cautionary tales
or we can choose to embrace the gravity of what comes in between
to love ourselves and our falling everythings
our not enoughs, our too muches, our unworthys
the line between perfection and perception
pulled from insanity’s abyss
and safely nestled in our own hands

what if it were possible
for a woman to catch an arm of sunlight
and use it to melt the war against herself
imagine what she could do next