by Meg Brodeur '24 on March 3, 2023
Portfolio Co-Editor
Portfolio
“So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate:
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.”
(Paradise Lost, Book IX, Lines 780-785)
I’m blamed for the demise of my sex:
the sex created under a pretense of partnership with man
They cite a wrong flick of my tongue as the initial flame,
That has burned women at the stake for witchcraft,
seared the widows thrown onto funeral pyres
and branded female slaves as sexual currency
I stare eternally from my cursed flesh,
at the consequences of only my actions
They tell women to know their place,
As subservient creatures created for the pleasure of man,
Thousands of translations have melted away the words
“partnership” and “equality” from the pages of scripture
They have distorted the word “woman” into a tacky, five-letter word-
Devoid of the divine feminine energy that dwells within my daughters
I watch with tear-soaked eyes at the scars on their skin,
Each individually feeling the burn from my initial flame
I’m blamed for the excruciating pain of childbearing
and take responsibility for the shameful habit of menstruation
It is Adam’s punishment that they strictly view us as possessions—
properly bought and sold with the blessing of a holy man
Through bloodshot eyes,
I’ve seen little girls beaten, chained, and enslaved
Under the pretense of “arranged marriage”
I’ve watched them be stripped of their purity:
the same sexual innocence that men hold so closely and praise so loudly
They scream at the top of their lungs, claiming ownership
over something that doesn’t belong to them,
Has never belonged to them,
And will never belong to them.
A little girl is a child, she cannot be a vixen
Do not call her a femme fatale to justify your pathetic lack of willpower-
Blame Adam for that.