07 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich in Jay Rusovich, 0 Comments

Where Feminism Lost It’s Groove

Loose notes from an industrial trash bin:

I’m a woman.

What am I?

See, it’s what – not who – because that’s what it feels like: a metallic pellet in a giant machine that rules the earth with indifference, and sometimes, disdain.

But I no longer care. I’ve forgotten that feels like.

I merely survive, and of course, feed when I can, commensurate with my performance and design.

I am bolted shut.

Soldered at the seams.

Separated from light and sound.

Without oxygen, now back in open space where it belongs.

In here there is no life. There is only form. It makes me what I am, what I’ve become.

You appraise me, running your hands up and down my spine like a Persian cat, just one little bump after the next in a long line of little bumps.

I like the way it feels, the way it makes me feel. I like the attention, being noticed, because my physical beauty has earned me this right and this affirmation is satisfying in a curious way.

Feeling anything at all.

Enjoying what I am, what I’ve become.

My skin is tough, repellent. Go ahead. Rain down on my veneer. Test the mettle of my circuitry. Think you can obliterate my nerves? Short-circuit what’s left of my neurons?

Go ahead.

Maybe then I can rest.

But you can’t.

It’s too late.

What you see are replacement parts. The rest of me is gone. You can’t find me because there is nothing to find but what you see. I have earned my place here and now I am lost in the mechanics of life.

For some reason, though, I still feel residual pain. Where is it coming from?

I’m dead.

Gone, yet vaguely raw and exposed.

How can my life hang in this nether region between these two dimensions?

Maybe that’s it.

Two dimensions.

Were there not three at some point? I can still feel something, but it’s very elusive; like a lingering echo in a canyon from beyond the last ice age.

And my sleep is no loner black and dreamless.

It’s fracturing.

Something is wrong.

Stay away from me!

Leave me alone!

I’m finally where I want to be!

I’m secure!

I’m happy!

I’m home! I swear to God I’m home!

Fuck it. Even the morphine eventually runs its course…