Pretty from Heirloom by Kylie Kain

Must our rage look pretty too?
Demure in a gas lit room
Are you sure you saw it as it was?
You were barely breathing afterall, darling

He makes his way to railway station
Counting not all men,
Like that's an equation

Lets himself into her apartment
Takes her life as if he owns it
Cops said they are known to one another
Known he wouldn't stop
And known she needed cover

Must our rage look pretty too?
Is black and white too blood red?
Is black and white too emotional?
Is black and white something a man says?

Twirling dervishes in the parliamentary chamber
That's three hundred and fifty nine degrees of looking away
The media media commentators want to know
Was his mama too much
Was his daddy not enough
Why can't he keep his fists in his cuffs after dark?
The intervention sent her from the desert to the coast
Where she didn't know a soul
And he got to keep the keys and the house
And every little boy and girl in town
Saw how that played out
And the court room bumbles through
'beyond reasonable doubt'
While she gets her ear sewn back on and wonders if
Anyone picked her teeth up off of the street
All the while
Making women
Best
As less
With opinions about her wages, her hair, her body and her dress
But oh,
How we love to watch her naked
Viewing preference number one
Dominated and humiliated
Is viewing preference number 1.

And so on it goes
Down the escalator
To the children hiding underneath
The kitchen table

Must our rage look pretty to you?
You can sit on your hands if you want to...

• Acoustic
• Fleurieu Peninsula
• heirloom
• musician
• south Australia
• storyteller
• Inman Valley