Kimberly O'Connor

I posted this back in July, but just to subscribers. Here it is made public. Here’s to sounding bitchy! Bonus: there’s a writing prompt at the end.

Mark your calendar for Saturday:

March 8: International Women’s Day in Denver (and if you’re not in Denver, check your city!)

There’s always a demonstration for International Women’s Day on March 8 in Denver. Several groups are organizing this year’s gathering, which will take place at the Colorado Capitol on Saturday, March 8, at 2 p.m.

from Westword

Someone Says I Sound Bitchy in a Zoom Meeting

I was thinking the same thing about a different woman in that Zoom meeting

That she sounded bossy and bitchy

During the Zoom meeting I was trying to assess what this woman might change

Change perhaps about her tone of voice so she wouldn’t sound so bitchy

She was bossing everyone else around with her tone of voice

According to my husband and son I was doing the same thing

With my voice and facial expression

Here are a few facts

The other woman and I are both mothers

The other woman and I were the seniors of the meeting

Meaning that in this group of people we have been around the longest

The other woman and I have seen this thing derail before

The other woman and I both had children waiting for us during that meeting

Hers was on her lap

Mine was orbiting my eastern field

Hers was cooing at the screen

Mine was waiting to go to the dentist

When I learned that I sounded bitchy during the meeting I felt upset

I felt upset because I don’t want to sound bitchy

I was in fact during that meeting making an effort to both appear and to be enthusiastic

This meeting was meant to be half an hour

After 45 minutes we came to a pause

I said meeting-ending kinds of things 

Have a good weekend 

Then somebody brought up something new 

The truth is I hate meetings

I have been taught my whole life how unattractive it is to be bitchy

No one likes a bossypants

I clicked the button to leave the meeting

Tomorrow if we sound bitchy so be it

Maybe I will try to sound bitchy

Maybe I will try to sound as bitchy as a feel

An angry, possibly bitchy, cat on a table,
with wide eyes and a mouth open in a snarl

Photo by Sahil Pandita on Unsplash

About This Poem

This poem is from part of the pandemic when we still had meetings over Zoom but could return to dentist appointments. During this meeting I really was trying to be cheerful, so I was surprised when I got off the meeting and my family told me how bitchy I sounded. That society often labels powerful women as bitchy is not a shocking newsbreak from this poem.

Prompt

Write a poem about a Zoom meeting. Write a poem about a time someone told you you were coming across in some sort of negative way: bitchy, rude, judgmental, etc. Write a poem in which you eschew punctuation. Write a poem with an extra space between each line. Write a poem about power.