Fight Song
Sometimes you have to say it:
Fuck them all
Yes fuck them all-
the artsy posers,
the office blowhards
and brown-nosers;
Fuck the type who gets the job done
and the type who stands on principle;
the down-to-earth and understated;
the overhyped and underrated;
Project director?
Get a bullshit detector.
Client's mum?
Up your bum.
You can't be nice to everyone.
When your back is to the wall
When they don't return your call
When you're tired of saving face
When you're screwed in any case
Fuck culture scanners, contest winners,
subtle thinkers and the hacks that offend them;
people who give catered dinners
and (saddest of sinners) the sheep who attend them-
which is to say fuck yourself
and the person you were: polite and mature,
a trooper for good. The beauty is
they'll soon forget you
and if they don't
they probably should.
by Deborah Garrison from her book of poetry called A Working Girl Can't Win
Women do this. They are prone to stand up for things and stand until the end and they have lost more than they have gained. I love Garrison's poems because they exemplify strong women, and not just feminist women, but women willfully finding themselves in places of reflection when it comes to the men in their lives.
I do this. I dig in my heels and even after I have decided that the other person is right, I'll dig in my heels for spite, just to do it. Like the fights you may have had with your mother on who has the last word. I will give up everything I love, at times, to prove that I had a point, that there was one a ways back and I don't want you to ever forget it, even if now it makes no sense to recognize it now, because now it's too late.
Life to me, as it stands, is a series of new friendships and the disposing of people who may be good at heart but who are simply too much for me to take. It's something I keep having to do, because people won't get out of my way any other way unless I kick them out and slam my door. Even if a handful of people only want a scrap of me, I won't give it to them, because I want more than a scrap taken from me and I require more than a scrap from anyone because I don't have casual friends. I don't have acquaintances.
If I screw it up and it's my fault that we have resorted to scraps, do not expect me to have dignity, to be decent. I am as transparent as a sheet of glass when it counts.