“The Handmaid’s Testimony”

Note: This is a poem I wrote in the wake of the March 2021 killing of eight people in Atlanta, six of whom were women of Asian descent. The obvious literary inspiration for this rant in iambic pentameter is The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. There’s also a Chvrches reference for anyone who likes their feminism Scottish and/or synthy.

“The Handmaid’s Testimony”

I take this stand against my own advice

Against the advice of those who came before

“Speak truth to power, you’ll get your throat ripped out,”

They warn me in the cadence of the mute

Women left hanging out to dry alone

And believe me, I know they’re right, I do

But still a lyric in my head insists

I leave a trace of what I should have been

What I might have had in another life

With options other than “whore,” “bitch,” or “wife”

I know that look you’re giving me right now

You think you’re going to trip me up on cross

But here’s the thing: I’m only here to spill

I won’t be taking questions at this time

You get to sit there and listen for once

As I lay out the tale of a handmaid

Who stayed on script for years, then went off book

The day she figured out it ends the same

For her no matter which choices she makes

It is for her to give, and them to take

You see, they drew my contract up at birth

They used my thumbprint as a signature

It was years before I got to read it

By then, of course, it was too late to matter

Because I had failed to read the fine print

Scrawled between the lines in invisible ink

That I could only see under the light

Of the blinding interrogation lamp

They shone in my face when I told them how

Yesterday’s shadows point the way to now

They say I’m playing the victim card again

But they were there when you dealt me that hand

A hand made up of fools and two-faced kings

The self-appointed arbiters of truth

Always political, rarely correct

Forever smothering us with the white noise

Of twisted epic tales of ice and men

Until we stuff our hair into our ears,

Take comfort in the sounds of turning gray

The promise of release some years away

So don’t you tell me how I could have been

A handmade artifact to be unveiled

Millenia from now by better men

Or a handmaid with a tail that wagged the dog

You know they’ll never count as victories

Pyrrhic or otherwise, so no more lies

You know there is no way to make this right

You don’t deserve forgiveness from my lips

I’m only here to bear witness this time

The red-robed proof of your collective crime