I'm about twenty--a grown woman living with my boyfriend, who's a cop. Ironic--the rather tacky apartment complex where we live in is a hive of petty crime. This month, a rash of burglaries around us.

My boyfriend's proud he's there to protect me. But he's trapped by bureaucratic rules, he can only "protect" me in limited ways and offwork hours. And he's hurt if I try to protect myself in ways he can't.

Like when he was gone one day and I wrote a sign on our door, in big fluorescent letters, saying "let's watch each others' apartments for the burglar!" One of my boyfriend's cop colleagues saw it and got pissed off and told him. He didn't act angry, just oh so hurt. Like I'd let him down, somehow, implied he can't do his job!

I'm just getting helped to death, here. All his little cop friends...

Time to face facts. I'm in love with a sexist and if he doesn't change it's not gonna work. I can stand him leaving me out of some things--every relationship has some compromises, and I really don't want to know every gruesome detail of his work--but I HAVE to have room to act on my own.

That's not negotiable.

And then I wake to find everything got negotiated. I don't live there, I don't have a cop boyfriend, I'm a radical who can't imagine having one. I don't even like boys, and never did. Girls for me. Not surprising--since, now, I notice I'm a boy myself.

Not that gender matters much, in the long run. What matters is: who's this cop inside me who discourages direct action? And why do I stand for that?

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites