sea lion woman

this is a poem, by ayisha'a al-taimuriya. it was written 100 years ago.

I challenge my destiny, my time
I challenge the human eye
I will never sneer at ridiculous rules, and people
That is the end of it; I will fill my eyes with pure
Light, and swim in a sea of unbound feeling
I have challenged tradition and my absurd position,
And I have gone beyond what age and place allow.

this is her magnum opus. it is her declaration of independence, her creed. light, in arabic, is noor, is knowledge. felix culpa. and she fills herself full of it. here, where restraint is everything, where women are the "custodians of the family's honor", destined to put on a smile every day of the week no matter what, unbound feeling is an impossibility, an unheard-of sin.

and maybe she's talking about death, suicide. as her agency, as her power. swimming? in light? in unbound feeling? is this the end of it? maybe this is a suicide note. but not an angry one, or a sorrowful one. she is anything but apologetic. her suicide is her door, to a life in which she is powerful. in which she is her own.

the semicolon speaks. "that is the end of it;"- if it were really the end, there would be a period. the semicolon is an invitation, to dialogue. to discussion. it is a refusal of the absolutes, a moving beyond lines in the sand. enemies or not, we both have voices.
that is the end of it; but i have more to say.
that is the end of it; but i want you to know.
that is the end of it; maybe it's the saying that matters, and not how the words are received.
that is the end of it;








and now it changes. crescendos, and becomes not "i am", not "i will", but "i have challenged". "i have gone beyond". she has already done it, whether or not anyone ever sees or believes. she is the agent, and her left hand knows what her right hand does. she has, and the others and their eyes are unimportant.

here, as in many things, the act of speech is the important thing. trees do fall in forests. whether or not anyone ever hears her,

there is freedom in the saying.