schoolyard lessons; a poem

It’s telling, isn’t it?

It’s telling that one of the earliest lessons I learnt as a child was to smile when boys pushed me on the playground or giggle and gossip with my friends after I got called ugly,

Why are they mean to me, Mummy? I don’t understand.

My young face crinkles in confusion,

Hair tangled from playing,

So much I didn’t know back then,

Such a silly girl.

Oh, she smiles conspiratorially, leaning to brush away my angry tears,

Sometimes, sweetheart, boys are mean because they like you,

It’s just what they do,

It’s just boys being boys.

Well, this changes everything.

Now, when a boy on a bike calls me annoying and laughs with his little circle,

Throwing sticks and rocks that graze my pale knees,

I blush and ride past on my hot pink wheels again,

So he can get a better look and so I can relish in the way his attention makes my heart quiver.

Boys will be boys, huh?

That’s what my teacher said when a boy in class punched me in the arm so hard that it left a bruise because I wouldn’t let him play with my toys,

That’s what I told myself after a boy in 4th grade called me a slut because I missed a basketball shot in PE class,

Never been a sporty one, no.

I had never heard the word before that day,

I didn’t even know what it meant.

SLUT;

Such a full sound in the mouth, so much repulse and meaning in one neat syllable.

Honey, my mum says years later, helping me get ready for my first ever date,

I know he’s into sport…

Tennis, right? If you ever play together, don’t try to outperform him,

Boys don’t like to be outshone.

Sport is a serious thing when testosterone runs in your veins instead of blood, I learn.

Boys don’t like funny girls, boys don’t like sporty girls, so what do they like?

Can’t be a slut, can’t make them laugh, can’t sweat, can’t yell,

Maybe all boys want is silence,

Just a nice pair of tits and a quiet, acquiescing smile.

I wonder where I would be if had worked just as hard on loving myself as figuring out why boys didn’t love me.

Once boys had teamed up to call us sluts and throw rocks,

Then, we started doing it to each other,

Girl against girl,

Woman against woman.

Rebecca got with a guy at the party last night? That’s the second one this week,

Slut, we whispered,

WHORE.

I’m outside a French verbal exam, waiting to go in,

A boy comes out of the room,

I’m next.

Le passe composé runs through my head, a metronome,

The boy sees I’m wearing a dress because it’s hot and because maybe I felt worthy and pretty that day,

Because maybe that day, I looked in the mirror and didn’t loathe what I saw.

Silly girl, such a silly girl.

Are you trying to seduce the teacher or something? he asks, looking me over like the only way I can do well is if I push my chest out and smile,

Boys don’t like smart girls, either, it seems.

It’s telling, isn’t it?

That the world has pushed girls down at every chance,

Loaded our plate with lessons and mandates and dogma,

Steaming and ripe, spoon-fed from youth to keep us safe, they said,

To make sure boys don’t rape us or kill us or worse,

Don’t want us,

Don’t find us worthy of their gaze.

But still, we check ourselves when the old voices resurface,

We learn and correct the teachings of our childhood,

We don’t call a girl wearing a short skirt a slut or a girl in charge of her sexuality loose,

We don’t call a powerful woman a bitch just for speaking her mind in a world that would rather her be silent.

No.

We fight,

We dismantle,

We embrace,

We rise.