Hex

by Jenni Fagan

A woman’s voice is a hex. She must learn to exalt men always. If she doesn’t do that, then she is a threat. A demon whore, a witch – so says everyone and the law. So say the King and his guards. So say the witch-pricker and his sadistic friends. So say the husbands, the haters, the wives, the daughters, the God-fearing – demons are always trying to kill them, so they know. So says the hangman who sleeps with Bible in hand.

we don’t have to buy into the fears of men, even if they kill us for them.

The thing is, men don’t know why they are here. None of us do. Not really. Tall stories only make tall churches. Not reality.

There is no man on this earth who didn’t get here except by a woman parting her thighs! We are portals. Humans emerge from our bodies into a world without explanation. Some men hold a brutal kind of grudge for that. They hold hatred in their heart. They fear us – for bringing them out of the Null and into this. They want to kill us because we create their lives from our bodies. What kind of alchemy is that? What kind of a power? Within our flesh, we make flesh. Whilst we are reading books, working, fighting, sitting on the bus, we form atria, blood, lungs, legs, nails, hair, eyes, ears. Not all make it. We try again, or we don’t. We bear pain. We bear loss.

Put those heels away. That click, click, click, click is Morse code for rapists. It says their sentences will be lenient or non-existent. If only she didn’t wear stilettos. If only she didn’t walk through a park. If only she didn’t go out at night.

How come you know so much, Iris? – Smart women taught me. – How’d they teach you? – They wrote the stories they were not meant to, were published by others who broke rules to do so, they sang the songs they were not meant to sing, stole time to make paintings that left breadcrumbs for those of us who came after them, so we might follow them through the forest and try to get out the other side; they acted in films, on streets, in bars, or I just listened, cleaning loos alongside them, or sat next to a stranger who’d chat away: those are all women who taught me.

Who is the Devil? Where does he really exist? In the mouths and fists of men that lie as husbands and fathers and owners of this life!

Ever since the first of days, woman was told she was here solely to serve and obey, to bend and twist, to hide the sharp tip of her tongue. God help her if she is a mirror. If she reflects back at them what they are without even trying.