Bear Down

Bear down,
Back straight, eyes front, chin up, act like a lady, dress like a whore, but never the other way around,
Bear down,
In the throes of labour pushing forth unyielding life
Bear down
On your palm against your brow while you cook, and you clean, and you work and you mother
Bear down,
On the base of your spine against the board room chair as they cackle and cluck and appropriate your ideas
Bear down
With grit and steel and determination, as you watch another promotion go over your head
Bear down
On your heels and push past the insidious catcalls and lascivious glares as you walk alone at night
Bear down,
On the bar with your glass at 3 in the morning while you try to avoid an unwanted embrace
Bear down
On your back against a bar room wall while you grin and you placate because no one ever taught you that it’s ok for a woman to turn down polite advances.
Bear down
On your teeth in the night under a stranger’s gyrations as you make a mistake that you just can’t afford
Bear down,
On your pillow, wet with tears as you draw yourself to an inevitable conclusion,
Bear down
On the seat of the plane as you leave your home to shed the spoils of romantic misadventure
Bear down
On your teeth as you clench your jaw and prepare for the worst moment of your life to arrive
Bear down
Bear right down all the way down to your marrow as you cross a picket line full of more cat calls and horrors.
Bear down
As they hollow you out, body and soul, leaving nothing but a cold surgical ache deep in your heart,
Bear down
On that seat again, because you’re back on that plane, returning home as a criminal
Bear down
As strangers dub you a murderer with no regard for your torment
Bear down
As you live with the burden of being a woman of less importance
Bear down
Without child, without grace, holding only emptiness in your gut
Bear down
As your country, your land, your home without welcome, abandons you in shame
Bear down
Like the thousands before you, whose hands have borne the work of men and hips have done the same
Bear down
As your fall from grace burns inside you, a raw angry throb they refuse to acknowledge
Bear down
On the streets in protest and demand more justice for the poor bewildered souls that continue to come trailing behind you
Bear down
In this fight for autonomy over your own body, as your perceived disrepute becomes our national disgrace
Bear down
As a woman,
As a victim
As a sympathiser
As an advocate
As a girl of Eire,
Bear down
Bear down
Bear down