+
upworthy
More

I Wish 1 in 3 Women Didn’t Have A Personal Experience With The Topic Of This Poem

Eve Ensler, of "Vagina Monologues" fame, wrote a poem about her relationship with her father, and it hit me right in the gut. It's superb. And ugly. And too many women will be able to relate to it. Trigger Warning.

Here is the full text of the poem, as not all of it is included in the animation:

THEN WE WERE JUMPING


In the dream he comes
And sits across from me
At something that looks like a table
But has a constellation of
stars painted on the top of it
He is wearing his old yellow
Sweater that he used to wear only in the house
And he looks uneasy
older than I remember
And sad
Really sad
I remember this sadness
I lived in this sadness
Like a fog,
Like a virus I gave my body to him
To make the sadness go away
He took my body to make the sadness less
And when that didn’t work
He made me as sad as him.

















But here now at the table with the stars
And the falling galaxy that seems to
Come alive between us
I know surely that his sadness belongs to him
And for the first time
I don’t move
Away or towards
I don’t move at all
I feel strangely confident
I look up and realize
There is a vast circle
Of thousands maybe millions
Of people sitting around us
And we are in something like
A coliseum
and people are patient and quietly waiting
some women are knitting pot holders and others red flags
a few men are leaning forward in their seats
smoking cigarettes
some are wearing strange hats
almost like they are clowns
they are not the kind of people
my father would have talked to
and they know this
but they are not unkind
my father suddenly gets annoyed
angry the way he used to get really
angry impatient and he says with a mean face,
“What are you looking for, Evie?”
He seems so small so fragile
I know I am not meant to save him
And then this silence
descends
a jar of liquid
light
around us
holding us, containing us
and out of nowhere
this clot, this dirty bloody transparent clot
filled with sharp noises and scraps of cruelty
starts coming out of me
out of all the parts of my body
pouring out of me
gathering
into one huge clot
And it floats like a murky rain cloud
Hovering over my father’s head
like it is expecting something
and my father takes a beat
looks up
and then he just opens his mouth
so natural, so easy
and receives my river of
pain, he swallows it whole
and all the people start cheering
wildly cheering and singing
and dancing
I can’t take my eyes off him
My father becomes so full
his cheeks bulging and red
almost about to explode
not able to take much more
and then these red tears begin to
pour down my father’s cheeks
I’m a little scared – it looks like he’s crying blood.
But the people are still cheering
They are so encouraging
This goes on for a while
My father crying and crying blood red tears
And as I am looking because I won’t stop looking at him
My father suddenly becomes a boy
and he isn’t sad
he is dazzling and clever and playful
he takes me by the hand
and walks me out into the center
of the coliseum which is
now a field of wild high ticklish grass
blowing in an almost hysterical wind
and we just start jumping and jumping
crazy jumping
I can’t believe how high we are jumping
The earth is a trampoline and I am not afraid
to go higher and higher

















































































When I wake up I think
Oh, this is it. This is justice.

Eve Ensler

July 2013

Family

Mom calls out teacher who gave her son a 'zero' grade for not providing class with supplies

Her viral video sparked a debate as to whether or not providing school supplies should be mandatory for parents.

@shanittanicole/TikTok

A zero grade for not providing school supplies?

The debate as to whether or not parents should supply classroom supplies is not new. But as prices continue to rise, parents are growing more baffled as to how they can be expected by teachers to provide all the various glue sticks, colored pencils, rulers and other various items the incoming students might need.

What’s even more perplexing, however, is penalizing the children of parents who won’t (or can’t) provide them.

This was the case for Shanitta Nicole, who discovered her son received a zero grade in his new school for not bringing school supplies for the entire classroom.
Keep ReadingShow less

A group of men look at paperwork.

The massive changes to the American workplace caused by the COVID-19 pandemic invited many to reconsider their professional lives. This reevaluation has led people to push for improved work-life balance, and many now are looking for work to provide a greater sense of meaning and purpose.

When the world returned to work after COVID, many believed they deserved to be treated better by their employers. This resulted in many taking a break from the workforce or changing professions altogether. It also helped usher in a more comfortable culture for calling out companies that don’t treat their employees respectfully.

Recently, a group of thousands came together on Reddit to expose the common mistruths that people often hear at the workplace. It all started when a Redditor named PretenstoKnow asked: "What's the most common lie employers tell their employees?" And over 2,600 people responded.

Keep ReadingShow less

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Photo Credit: William Fortunado via Canva

Amanda Seals breaks down history of DAP handshake

We've all seen people do it. Anywhere from basketball players on television to kids meeting up at the skating rink. Even former president Barack Obama when greeting a mixed group of men gave "DAP" to the Black men in the group, yet switched to a firm handshake when greeting the other men.

It was almost like watching the president code switch, but with body language, in a move that many Black Americans recognize as a gesture of acceptance and comradery. But did you know that there's an actual history behind the DAP that has nothing to do with looking cool? Social justice educator and actress, Amanda Seales, recently re-shared a clip from "The Real" where she was diving into the history of the handshake.

Seales, who has a master's degree in African American Studies from Columbia University, was also admittedly surprised when she learned there was a deeper meaning to the gesture.

Keep ReadingShow less
Health

Neuroscientist reveals perfect amount of time to spend on social media for your mental health

Over several weeks, the participants felt less loneliness, depression and anxiety.

@rachelle_summers/TikTok

Anyone can use this checklist.

There are pretty clear cut guidelines on how much screen time kids should have, but for adults…not so much. And perhaps it’s this lack of clarity that leaves people to go on full blown digital detoxes or get off social media entirely.

And while there is certainly a case to be made for that decision, for many of us, that isn’t quite feasible—especially in certain lines of work.

Luckily, according to neuroscientist Rachelle Summers, there is a way we can still be on social media, without being subjected to its negative side effects.
Keep ReadingShow less
Photo by Kats Weil on Unsplash

Ready for a refreshingly wholesome story?

The stereotypical image we get of bachelor parties is a booze-filled evening of depravity and bad choices. Followed of course by a massive hangover…and some regrets.

And granted, there are plenty of viral videos to show that this is sometimes the case. But there are also plenty of grooms who don’t see it as their “last night as a free man.” On the contrary, they see it as an opportunity to simply celebrate the next chapter with close friends.

Case and point: a husband-to-be named Luke, who apparently couldn’t stop “gushing” about his bride, Sam. This, according to a woman also named Sam, who happened to be at the bar Luke was having his bachelor party at.
Keep ReadingShow less