The Violent Storm

Dear Diary…

It is November 12, 2022.
Starting work is like
Trying to weather a building storm
Of snide comments
And male dominance.

I walk in
Through those double doors
And it is like entering the part of the storm
Where the winds are strongest
And least forgiving.

I do my work,
Mind my own business,
But it is never enough.
There is always something that I have to fix
But never something that HE has to fix.

It is hard to believe in a world where
All people should be created equal.
That is like
Trying to force sunshine
Through the clouds of a violent storm.

I feel uprooted from my past life.
Like the fantasies
Have been cut apart
By a knife
That revealed the cruel truths
Beneath.

It is as if
We never met,
We never laughed,
We never wept.

It is as if
Once you are grown
The sunshine falters
And gives way to snow.

But not the snow that
Glistens in the winter.

No,
This is a snowstorm,
Determined to cover you,
Suffocate you,
Suppress you
with
Male dominance.

I do not know how to survive in a world
Like this.
I do not know how to survive in a world that will always be
His.

Signing off,
Rebecca M. Martini