I’ve been sending my stories to feminist book publishers

“Why?”

You might ask.

Entertainment, mostly.

The responses I get back are… well, to put it mildly—hostile

but I digress.

I respond, not in kind, but by being kind.

“The nicer ones say, “Your voice isn’t right for our magazines.”

I think my stories would do feminists some good. I don’t hate them, for their point of view

because

I already know what I think.

Listening, is a tasty treat that I eat.

The silence between syllables

is jazz

It makes me want to jump off a building

but when I don’t argue, they don’t know what to say

their radical records go around and around

with horrible scratches on them

If people would only talk to me, I would listen

We all have a life sentence

and we want to experience

the outside

where we have never been

There has never been a you or a me

throughout all of human history

So, talk to me…

I’m listening.