the madszine

It always astounds me when they regurgitate insults at me,
Not because I don’t consider myself a threat to them,
Or them sardonic of me.
No, what catches me off balance mid sentence,
Is the unoriginality of it all.
An insult I’ve heard recycled a dozen times,
They can hardly expect it
To cut the same impact
That it would have done the first time.
I am accustomed to my position.
The responder,
Never the accuser.
Go back to the kitchen,
Kinder. Küche. Kirche.
Go back to the kitchen and do what?
Make me a sandwich.

It aggravates me,
I’d happily spend,
An hour or two,
In my kitchen doing what I do,
If they hadn’t weaponised my actions,
Without my consent.

Do what in the kitchen?
Whatever pleases me in that moment.
The kitchen is liberation for my girlhood,
Perhaps my world is encompassed just as much,
Within these four walls,
Than it is under the sky.
I can play my own music,
Through a speaker designed like a vintage radio,
Its glistening gold and its all mine.
I can dance my own moves,
Without the fear of a camera,
Catching my moment of vulnerability.
A batch of brownies,
Or cookies,
Can bake in the oven.
And I’ll eat all twelve without once glancing,
At the serving size,
Written online.
I’ll sing at the top of my voice in rhapsodies,
And I can’t half of the notes,
But it doesn’t matter,
Because no one can hear.
I reclaimed my kitchen,
In my own ecstasy and image.
I made my own cupboards,
And stocked them with food that I chose.
Each action uniquely my own,
Painstakingly chosen as to curate,
My own Helike.

The next time,
I get accosted,
By that tired disparagement,
I might just go.
They won’t follow.
They don’t know the way.

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