FROM THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES

I recently received an email from a dear friend named Thunder. Go visit Mary Elizabeth Thunder www.marythunder.com and meet one of the most amazing women I have been blessed to call friend.

After reading 'Under the Burqa', I thought...
'There but for the grace of God, go I'

For those of you who know me, you know how difficult it is for me to keep my mouth shut...how impossible it is for me not to laugh out loud...and how desperately I believe in freedom of choice for both women and men...

Under The Burqa


imagine a huge dark piece of cloth
hung over your entire body
like you were a shameful statue
imagine there's only a drop of light
enough to know there is still daylight for others
imagine it's hot, very hot
imagine you are being encased in cloth,
drowning in fabric, in darkness.
imagine you are begging in this bedspread
reaching out your hand inside the cloth
which must remained covered, unpolished, unseen
or they might smash it or cut it off
imagine no one is putting rupees in your invisible hand
because no one can see your face
so you do not exist
imagine you cannot find your children
because they came for your husband
the only man you ever loved
even though it was an arranged marriage
because they came and shot him
you tried to defend him and they trampled you
four men on your back
in front of your screaming children
imagine you went mad
but you did not know you were mad
because you hadn't seen the sun in years
and you remembered your two daughters vaguely
like a dream the way you remembered sky.
imagine muttering as a way of talking
because words did not form anymore in the darkness
and you did not cry because it got too hot and wet in there.
imagine bearded men that you could only decipher
by their smell
beating you
because your socks were white
imagine being flogged in the streets
in front of people you could not see
imagine no peripheral vision
so like a wounded animal
you could not defend yourself
or even duck from the sideward blows
imagine that laughter was banned
throughout your country and music
and the only sounds you heard
were the muffled sounds the azun
or the cries of other women flogged
inside their cloth, inside their dark.
imagine you had no place to live
your only roof was the cloth
as you wandered the streets
and this tomb
was getting smaller and smellier every day
you were beginning to walk into things
imagine suffocating
while you were still breathing
imagine you could no longer distinguish
between living and dying
so you stopped trying to kill yourself
because it would be redundant
imagine me inside the inside
of the darkness in you
i am caught there
i am lost there
inside the cloth
which is your head
inside the dark we share
imagine you can see me
i was beautiful once
big dark eyes
you would know me.

From The Vagina Monologues

Any culture that treats women this way should not be tolerated. No people who think that this is acceptable behaviour should be encouraged. And...unless we are all careful...the rest is too scary to put into words.

Have a great day...stay safe...and thanks for dropping in.