Maybe Misandry

I heard the thunder and remembered my broken bones.
There is a word for what you brought about in me,
but I forget.

Icy rain bleeding down the window panes, a casualty of the demands
of the water cycle. Watching them, little droplets dragged and stretched
into rivulets of liquid crystal, I remembered my broken bones.
How they ached
and shot me through with sudden arrows of unexpected pain.
It was more than that, though, wasn't it?
There was a little bit
of the martyr in me.

The curling taste of alcohol undulated on my tongue
and I thought of my broken bones.
If it had been just once, it would have been too much.
Someone should have said something,
that's what they say, but who could say what I would not?
Not the first time I've been my own stumbling block, but this time
it was deeper than the last. The (w)hole that I had to climb out of was
more than I could undertake.
It's all right, really.

I didn't know it was a word,
until a day or two ago. Reading an article in a feminist newspaper,
(that denied the tangibility of the word) it jumped out at me, and I remember feeling
like a patient who is diagnosed with something relatively new.
"Is that a real thing?"
But on the inside, strangely grateful for the confirmation
of a sneaking suspicion that something isn't right.
Treatment has been postponed
until I am strong enough to handle the cutting away of pieces of my soul.

I heard the thunder and thought how much I hated you.

I drank and thought how much I hated myself.

Painful exposure to the acidic light.
Thoughtless comments I can't deny, but wish I could, they are so beyond
what I always thought of myself. But all in all,
at least it's a word, at least
it's a real thing.
So it is pronounced. So it is identified.
Some small comfort is in that.