
Listen to a reading of “Just Two Weeks”:
❖
I stand here before you
in my mother’s hand-me-downs,
in this world where mothers must work like they don’t have children
and parent like they don’t have jobs,
keeping households running and bills paid
while their hearts run around outside their bodies
on tiny little legs that don’t yet know where the wolves are,
but don’t you dare over-mother them,
or under-mother them,
or get anything wrong while treading laundry
and kung fuing the kitchen
and, oh yeah,
if you could save the world from nuclear armageddon
and environmental collapse when you get a minute
that’d be great.
I stand here before you
in my mother’s hand-me-downs,
with my mother’s strangled voice,
and my mother’s Pinesol hands,
and my mother’s weeping back,
and my mother’s feral chores,
and my mother’s loving patience,
and my mother’s gritted teeth,
and my mother’s inner beauty
that you never get to see —
her inner world of unheard symphonies
and unpainted art
and oceans of sleeping babies,
neatly stuffed into a housecoat
drowned out by a Helen Reddy song.
I stand here before you
in my mother’s hand-me-downs,
glaring with crosshair eyes at eelfaced manipulators
who blacken my children’s sky,
who poison my children’s water,
who microplastic my children’s blood,
who scorch my children’s Earth
to turn billionaires into trillionaires,
vowing “I see you,
I’ll stop you,
right after this dentist appointment,
right after this assignment,
right after these taxes,
right after this to-do list,
I’ll be ready to stop you
in, like, two more weeks, maybe,
or maybe two weeks after that.”
I stand here before you
in my mother’s hand-me-downs,
with my mother’s intuition
(two eyes in the back of her head —
“I can see what you are doing!”),
but my many eyes can only glance
before more dishes pile up
before the to-do list unfurls —
I’ll get to it, I’ll get to you,
I’ll stop you,
I will,
I see what you are doing,
I just need to take the kids to daycare
but make the sandwiches first
and stop off on the way to work
for a part to fix the air con
before the summer comes
before the heat you stoked
with dinosaur bones
and Canary Island loopholes
and the infantile ambitions
of impotent men
hits our little rental
(that I’m so grateful to have
so grateful I am
on-my-hands-and-knees grateful
your-cock-in-my-throat grateful
please don’t kick us out we love you we do)
like a solar wind storm
barbecuing my children
in this tent made of weatherboards
like a tiny funeral pyre
for bad women,
naughty witches,
ladies flying solo
who need to be put in their place.
Just two weeks.
Just two weeks.
Just two weeks more.
Just two weeks and I’ll sit in silence for while.
Just two weeks and I’ll write this all down.
Just two weeks I need to get this stuff done.
Just two weeks.
Just two weeks.
Just two weeks,
and I’ll stop you.
____________________
____________________
____________________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, buying an issue of my monthly zine, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

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eva / October 27, 2022
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Anita Diatschenko / October 27, 2022
I would comment if I could see to type through my tears.
/
Pascal / October 27, 2022
“on-my-hands-and-knees grateful
your-cock-in-my-throat grateful”
Aren’t you afraid to get sued by Viagra for unfair competition?
Even Gloria and her “sticky interest online” doesn’t get anywhere near!
We’d have to go back to Erica Jong and Pauline Réage to find the same kind of erotically charged material that rocked our youth.
Anyway, if they sue, you can always say it was a slip of the tongue…
Translation for the puritan American readers:
“*n-m*-h-nds-and-kn**s gr_tef*l
y__r-c*ck-*n-m*-thr–t gr_tef*l”@#!!!%&#@!!!
/
Gloria / October 27, 2022
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Riven / October 27, 2022
The tide is finally turning!
Uh Oh! This Guy Found the Bloke that Vaccinated His Child Without His Consent:
https://bitchute.com/video/NwPEDSU06tGi [19 seconds]
Given that the CDC all but mandated this poison for school children – and that means a lot more needles will be going into a lot more innocent arms – it will be interesting to see what the future will bring.
/
Pascal / October 27, 2022
Seen the movie The Real Anthony Fauci?
https://www.therealanthonyfaucimovie.com/viewing/
/
Paradiddle / October 27, 2022
“Keeping households running and bills paid.” This is increasingly difficult to do. Especially since the US’ ruling power spends the majority of its time dreaming up obstructionist policies and insidious schemes that undermine the US’ public. Is it any surprise that most of the world is moving away from the US’ rules-based world order? Capitalism is broken; it is not delivering to the majority.
/
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Paradiddle / October 27, 2022
You’ve just been rejected; try not to be cross Robert.
/
Ellen LaPenna / October 27, 2022
Deep breath and a lot of gratitude — thank you, Caitlin, for this raw brilliance and truth.
/
apiarian / October 27, 2022
Loved it and the spirit running through it. Spent all day with my 3yr old son inside due to shit weather.
Taking quick smoke breaks intermittently reading about the possible mass extinction event that may or may not take place. Very odd. 3yr old talk then reading about nuclear war then back to 3yr old. Surreal…
/
nate dale / October 26, 2022
Love this & love you
/
the virgin terry / October 26, 2022
ditto.
/
Roy / October 26, 2022
Not only was that very nice, visual, cutting and hard hitting, but it was guilt provoking as well, because for the last few days I’m thinking about how to get you syndicated knowing that you probably have 3 or 4 young ones as well, but this must still be submitted somewhere.
Attacked again, this time in a public library, I will try to get you two not only help but a bigger voice as well, but yeah, this poem may go down as well as the train called the ‘City of New Orleans’
/
Keri Molloy / October 26, 2022
Wow!
/
BB Benderhaus / October 26, 2022
Please stop ruining my dreams and fantasies with reality. A nice poem about sunshine, fairies and daisies would be nice. If you continue triggering our young people, they may cancel you like kanye.
/
Realist / October 26, 2022
The ogres in Washington figure that we have whatever time left they choose so magnanimously to allow us.
~
It’s not so much your choosing a life path for yourself in this present moment of history–perhaps truly its last syllable–but whether they will see fit to allow you that life.
~
They make everything wretched.
/
bob browning / October 26, 2022
love you CJ. Sometimes you get me crying, Things could be better but I’m saddened again when my brain softened friends quit trying.
/
leftfielder / October 26, 2022
Caitlin, stay strong, without stressing yourself out, for yourself and your children, though you all are more resilient than you may think. looking back at my child-raising days, when i was always looking in from outside literally, i can only say we survived, and i can only hope i have done some good along the way toward a better world.
/
forceOfHabit / October 26, 2022
So achingly true. Bless you for finding the words and the time to write it down for us.
/
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Paul Citro / October 26, 2022
Quite good. I will share this one.
/
Christina in Sweden / October 26, 2022
Thank you so very much for evry written word!
Agree with you!
Your true words help my days.
Love them/ you.
/
David Spero / October 26, 2022
Beautiful and crying as I read this. Love to all of us.
/
Gloria / October 26, 2022
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Paradiddle / October 27, 2022
Gloria, you may want to start using commas. The statement, (“make extra money online by using.”), seems to suggest that you are suffering from some form of substance abuse. If this is true, it might be prudent to enter a 12-step program for addiction. And then, upon successful completion, you can celebrate by doing the two-step (yee-haw!).
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