A Poem excerpted from the published literary fiction,
LOOSELY-BRAIDED FOG:
A 3-D SINGLE MOM IN THE MAKING
By DEIRDRE WEAVER, S.M.O.K.
® © Copyright 2001, All Rights Reserved, Deirdre A. Weaver
and PersonalRadar Books (tm).
Hats Off Books, Publisher
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"The Twenty-Year Fear"
She was twenty. He was twenty-eight.
She was a college junior.
He was a man of the world.
"The Graduate."
Or so the world thought.
They were eight years apart,
and about a million miles.
His secret was already old,
gathering dust in front of a camera.
Hers was being written
as those spring buds bloomed.
As the light came up on the world once again.
Hers was being decided by
someone she didn't recognize,
without a second look back,
for fear she would fall into oblivion.
Without her secret,
her future seemingly
finished sharply,
right then and there,
like the sea on a flat earth.
How poorly a happy childhood had prepared her,
because it was what had not yet ended.
If they could but trade their secrets
for these twenty years, would they?
She would, in a child's heartbeat.
She was not the thirteen-year-old girl
in the woman's body any longer.
Wholly changed by her selfishness,
her blindness. And she has to live with
all that she was, every day of her life.
If time could turn backward, indeed.
She can't leave the baggage at the curb,
or change its contents. Ever.
Ironic that he probably can change his,
if he only stopped to think about it.
So little of the world understands secrets.
They clamor to know,
then run screaming for the exit.
They throw the first stones anyway.
Even if all that's handy are words.
How could she throw a stone?
How could she not forgive?
How could she look squarely
at her reflection in his eyes,
and not flinch at what she saw there?
How could he ever forgive her?
'Though he wasn't her victim,
he could be her judge and jury,
if she let him.
If he only knew, he would understand.
He would see why she forgave him the first times.
Why she didn't run away from his secrets.
Why she could see them in the first place.
Why she grasped his fear as though it was her own?
It was her own. But for very different sins.
His secrets didn't begin as his own fault,
most likely.
Hers did.
So, no one is to blame
but her, for hers,
and, now, him, for his...
...But he wasn't there, then.
It wasn't him.
She hadn't even known he was alive.
A million miles apart, then, as now,
and living villages away.
Now she is forty; he is forty-eight.
She forgave him for the last time too.
She had to.
She had predetermined,
twenty years ago,
that she would have no choice
but to do so again, one last time.
The world wouldn't see why;
only why she had to move on.
It couldn't explain her willingness
to still forgive, after what he'd done.
If only he would ask, he would know.
If only he would relieve her fear.
If only he could ask for directions.
If only he could do for her
what she couldn't do for herself.
If only he could.
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"The feminist movement was born more than 200 years ago when Mary Wollstonecraft wrote 'A Vindication of the Rights of Women.' After decrying the sexual exploitation of women, she condemned those who would 'either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast it off when born.'... The now revered feminists of the 19th century were also strongly opposed to abortion because of their belief in the worth of all humans... Without known exception, the early American feminists condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms."~ Serrin Foster,
FEMINISTS FOR LIFE President,
"The Feminist Case Against Abortion" (recognized as one of twenty-two
"Great Speeches in History" in the book Women's Rights, published 2001, Greenhaven Press) OTHER FOUNDING FEMINISTS:
1. SUSAN B. ANTHONY: "Sweeter even than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been to me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them."
"No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who...drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime."
From Anthony's newspaper, The Revolution:
"When a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is a sign that, by education or circumstances, she has been greatly wronged." She recognized the need to "eradicate the most monstrous crime" of abortion from society.
2. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON: "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
3. ALICE PAUL (the author of the original Equal Rights Amendment, 1923): "Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women."
4. VICTORIA WOODHULL (America's first female presidential candidate): "Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never think of murdering a child before its birth."
MATTIE BRINKERHOFF. MATILDA GAGE. EMMA GOLDMAN. SARAH NORTON. All nine of the above founding feminists were against abortion
and for women.
"Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women. This campaign promotes women-centered solutions to significantly reduce abortion and protect women's health."... "Babies don't ruin people's lives," Serrin Foster, President of Feminist for Life said. "Poverty ruins people's lives. Unemployment ruins people's lives. A lack of education ruins people's lives. Violence ruins people's lives."
~WOMEN DESERVE BETTER (sm) Than Abortion
Forty-three percent of American women who have reached the age of forty-five have had an abortion - about 25 million women in total, or two out of every five women you know. Based on current research, at least 17.25 million post-abortive women who are still alive suffer many or all diagnosable symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
~ based on clinical research summaries of
THE ELLIOTT INSTITUTE
FOR NATIONWIDE "PREGNANCY SUPPORT RESOURCES" and
"POST-ABORTIVE SUPPORT ASSISTANCE,"
click on the buttons below.
® Copyright © 2001, All Rights Reserved,
Deirdre A. Weaver, Hats Off Books(tm), Publisher.
www.personalradar.com
The published paperback is available from www.amazon.com, www.BN.com, Hats Off Books, and your local independent bookstore.
ISBN: 1-58736-024-1; LCCN: 200-1087294
Printed in the United States of America
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