Penned Parenthood Literary Magazine: Words for Women, volume 1

Penned Parenthood Literary Magazine: Words for Women

Edited by Natalya Cowilich 1

“Women have been driven mad, “gaslighted,” for centuries by the refutation of our experience and our instincts in a culture which validates only male experience.

The truth of our bodies and our minds has been mystified to us.

We therefore have a primary obligation to each other: not to undermine each others’ sense of reality for the sake of expediency; not to gaslight each other.

Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience. Our future depends on the sanity of each of us, and we have a profound stake, beyond the personal, in the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other.”

-Adrienne Rich

©Planned Parenthood of the Southern Finger Lakes 2015 620 West Seneca Street Ithaca, NY 14850 PPSFL.ORG 607-216-0021 Cover photo credit: Miranda Gehris

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Issue No. 1 Penned Parenthood Literary Magazine: Words for Women Dear Readers, Welcome! We hope you enjoy our very first publication of Penned Parenthood: Words for Women. (And yes, when we say women we mean ALL women! Transgender, cisgender, queer, straight...no matter where you live on the spectrum of identity as a woman you are an important part of this literary conversation!)

Between the binding of this ‘zine, you will find a mixture of words of strength and words of pain; lessons learned and shared frustrations.

There are words that may feel empowering, make you laugh, and make you wonder, and there are words that will grace the social realities of women with an unforgiving cut that’s felt deep. Planned Parenthood is an organization that believes we all need tools, support, and resources to cultivate a sense of agency—having the self-knowledge and awareness to know what you want, what you don’t want, and having the skills and confidence to communicate that to others. We want you to do what you need, to make decisions for yourself. Reflective of that, our literary magazine will be a tool for you to be heard.

That being said, some of this writing may not appeal to your style. Some of it might make you angry. Some of it might make you sad. Some might leave you feeling uncomfortable. But hey, starting your period when you’re giving a book report at the front of the classroom wearing white pants is certainly uncomfortable. Having to explain one more time that the gender binary is so limiting and outdated is maddening. Telling people about how scripts and rules about what girls and women should be can

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make you pretty damn sad or angry. Talking about what to do when faced with an unexpected pregnancy with your partner, walking your dog alone at night, or giving birth: all of these things can be dropped onto a sliding scale from one to ten of feelings. And we know that scale moves and changes depending on the woman experiencing those feelings. Our hope is that you read these women's words and think about sex and sexuality; scripts and roles; expectations and access to health care; rights and equality; and women’s personal truths, and we hope you read with respect and openness.

We want to highlight the personal experiences of the everyday people who depend on, or are in support of, what we provide for the community, no matter what they have to say. As Carol Hanisch once said, the personal is political. We want to provide you with the health services you need. The information and education you need to make personal choices that are right for you. And now, we are providing a vessel through which you have the opportunity to share your voice.

For many, the comfort we have comes from community and communication, the ability to relate with words and wisdom. Listening to others, even when we don’t like what we hear. Having an open mind, open heart, and open ears. From our open hearts, minds, and ears, we give you your womanly words.

Cheers, The Editors

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TABLE OF CONTENTS I WEAR MY STRETCH MARKS LIKE TATTOOS, Katharyn Howd Machan Women in a Plastic Tube (from the directions from a tampon box), Kendall Griffin Closed Lips, Kaylie Crawford We Are Bodies, Natalya Cowilich Love Story, Nora Snyder Para mi hermanol To My Brother, Erika Hidalgo

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Thighs Like Silver Dollar Jade, Anonymous self-identifying queer poet What Am I?, Shira Adams What I’m Left With, Rebecca Dustar Apologies to Ten Strangers, Kayla Volpe We Were Together. I Forget the Rest., Anonymous For Cyclamen, Shira Adams WATCHING HER SLEEP, Katharyn Howd Machan Hiccup, Jessie Lee Williams There is an Art to Spanking, Anonymous Don’t Call Me Baby, Rebecca Dustar TO CHARLES BOWDEN (with apologies to Patricia Lockwood), Charlotte Butler Soul Sista, Anonymous Hey Marquette, Sheena Leigh Morrow Tonight I Walked My Dog, Liz Enwright Red Inspired by Edward Hopper’s painting “Nighthawks,” Rebecca Dustar Response to Remarks of Ignorance, Kayla Volpe He Stole Me, Rebecca Dustar Voice, Nora Snyder them feminisms dont call it oppression for nothing, Anonymous BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE Prose about my braless summer, Andie Millares Seasonal Affective Disorder, Kayla Volpe We Become, We Become, We Become, Natalya Cowilich Mama, Nora Snyder MY STONE IS SARDONYX, Katharyn Howd Machan Fertile Cherry Tree, Natalya Cowilich The Tampon, Alexa Salvato Thank Yous

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I WEAR MY STRETCH MARKS LIKE TATTOOS Katharyn Howd Machan to show I am a woman whose belly has billowed a mainsail on a pirate ship on its way to treasure a queen-size-bed top sheet on a new clothesline in March they make silver parentheses around my freckled navel tiny river tributaries from the cold spring of my joy pattern rising to the touch like fired-rice-grain china and oh the way the sunlight catches above my satin hipline skirts when the music births itself again and I start moving I start moving and with my daughter Dance

This poem first appeared in Mothering Magazine and is part of my collec on, Belly Words: Poems of Dance (Split Oak Press, 2009).

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Women in a Plastic Tube (from the directions from a tampon box) Kendall Griffin Step 1: Remove from wrapper, look at the “life-changing” applicator in your hand feel the weight of society in your hand check to see if it is damaged.

Step 2: Position body to comfort It may cause some discomfort Insert applicator where you are most vulnerable.

Step 3: Push. Push harder than you wanted feel the solid form of social conventions forced inside of you with your own hand feel the click that lets you know if it is securely lodged inside. This should not cause discomfort. Remove applicator.

Throw away.

Step 4: Continue. Walk around. Smile. You must smile.

You should not feel it. Acknowledge you pretend you seamlessly match these perfect pictures, painted faces that came in the box.

Continue life. Brush off the sexual innuendos, sexist comments, the looks and the cat calls. They are just a part of being those painted faces. You must continue.

Do not pay attention to what is tearing you apart from the inside, out.

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Closed Lips Kaylie Crawford Merry menarche!--Christmas morning, bed full of blood and a twelve-year-old girl. The “gift” of puberty was the most memorable present of that year. It was an abrupt and messy introduction to my vagina, and perhaps foreshadowing the difficulties of our relationship yet to come.

Before that, everything was just down there. And everything down there gave me trouble and pain. From an early age, I habitually contracted urinary tract infections. Doctors knew my mother and I well, and my sticker collection from the pediatrician’s office grew quickly. But with each infection, it became clear new doctors were needed. We found specialists in Boston, and they ordered special tests. They needed to insert dye into my urethra for a bladder ultrasound. The entire wing of the hospital heard me scream.

I remembered the old scream when I tried to find the vaginal opening with a tampon.

“It hurts, Mum,” I said. I was breathing quick. It was slippery.

The thin applicator was hard and I was scared.

“It shouldn’t hurt. Vaginas can stretch. How else could a baby come out, and, y’know, a penis is bigger than a tampon,” Mum said.

She was trying to help. I knew what she said was true—I blushed when she mentioned ‘penis’—but I could only feel latex gloves and a pointed tube reaching from the past. I gave up and sat by the pool, watching summertime whimsy splash away.

I began to really hate my vagina when I was seventeen. My menstruation cycles were irregular and unpleasant. Depression seeped into my mind while my weight inflated around my hips. Doctors were in my life again. I went to the lab—one, two, three times—clenching my fist and watching blood curl out of the crook of my elbow.

“I asked you to do the tests again because we did not think the first ones correct. And yet, they were!” The endocrinologist said with a soft Hispanic lilt. He handed the results to me. Very High Levels of Testosterone. Below Average Levels of Estrogen. The words seemed to bode ill, but their meaning was a phantom. I looked up to the endocrinologist for answers.

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“PCOS: poly-cystic ovaries syndrome. It causes a dysfunction of hormone production, which may be causing your irregularities. To confirm, I am going to order an ultrasound of your ovaries.” It was later confirmed with cold jelly on my abdomen in a dark hospital room that had the uneasy scent of sterilized everything.

I started to take birth control pills. The prescription humored me a little; I was taking the little white tablets purely for the hormones. I didn’t need them for anything else—I was a virgin, even unto myself. My vagina was a place of problems, of pain. I hated it, and it seemed to reciprocate the feelings.

The hatred started to dwindle when I discovered the clitoris. I was in college when I masturbated for the first time. It was strange, and I didn’t know what to make of the sensations. Down there felt good, for the first time in my life. It was building something inside— stacking anticipation—until finally: climax.

I giggled and laughed with an intensity matched only by watching a Mel Brooks film for the first time. I understood the appeal of sexual activity then. I had never imagined I could pleasure myself without a cooperative vagina. I began to try and work with the vagina and see if our relationship could be salvaged from the shambles of the past.

My vagina was stubborn and did not forgive. During a visit to a gynecologist, a pelvic exam became an attempted pelvic exam.

“Try to relax,” she said while my legs shivered, nervous. The old screams echoed in my head. Cold steel touched down there. I yelped, legs closed. My body did not want this. I did not want this.

The gynecologist sighed, frustrated. “Well, since you’re still young and you’re not sexually active, we don’t have to do this. From what I saw you’re fine. I suggest you masturbate and get used to the feeling of having something down there.” She left the room. The fluorescent light hummed while I slowly put on my clothes, damning my vagina and damning myself. What was wrong with me?

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Something was wrong. Something. Hatred returned.

At twenty-one I fell in love with a man. He was patient and respectful, and he found my vagina beautiful. Beautiful. I laughed at the absurd idea.

I held the reins of sex—he gave them to me, knowing I was still a virgin.

“You tell me when you’re ready. I’m not going to rush you at all—I’m perfectly happy right now with our sexy times,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at the end. I giggled. For a couple months, we perfected foreplay. The only rule I had was that his hands had to stay away from down there…once, when in the heat of the moment, he forgot. Panic gripped my heart and squeezed. Passionate sexy times turned into a therapy session with apologies from both sides and tears dripping down shoulders.

We grew closer and more in love. I took the reins and was ready.

We tried. He was calm, he was gentle, he was patient. But we couldn’t.

Something was wrong. Something…the routine of visiting doctors repeated.

Another doctor: “No wonder you had trouble having sex! The vaginal opening is barely big enough for the tip of my finger.”

Another doctor: “Huh. This is very unusual. You have a labial fusion—something we usually only see in prepubescent girls and postmenopausal women.”

Another doctor: “We’ll try to apply some estrogen cream and begin a regiment of using dilators—we’ll use the smallest ones—and see if that helps. Otherwise, we can schedule corrective surgery.”

My brain frizzled at the word “surgery.” I would try the treatment first. Per doctor’s orders, I applied the estrogen cream daily.

I tried to use the dilators daily, but I dreaded it. The tiny, nerf-like dilators were in varying sizes, meant to slowly stretch the vaginal opening. But even the smallest one—no bigger than my pinkie finger—hurt.

I wondered how long the labia minor lips had been closed.

How long I had been cut off, almost entirely, from my vagina? Why had no doctor seen this before, nor thought of it? The trouble with 10

tampons, the hormone irregularity, the uncomfortable sensitivity…I crumbled under the stress of everything. I felt my identity as ‘woman’ float just out of reach. I worried about future fertility due to the PCOS, I worried that I would never enjoy sex, I worried about the surgery, I worried, I worried, I worried…

“If, for some reason, you’re never able to have sex…that’s okay. I’m satisfied with what we have, and sex isn’t everything. I love you, and I support whatever decision you make,” my boyfriend said. I smiled. The support wrapped my heart in velvet.

I replied, “But I’m not satisfied. I want to make love. I want to have that option!”

The surgery was relatively short—about forty-five minutes.

The anesthesia ebbed away slowly while my boyfriend sat beside me in recovery. I remember little of recovery, save for the excruciating pain when the gauze was removed from my “new” vaginal opening.

However, my boyfriend distinctly remembers when I embarrassed him in front of two nurses and my surgeon.

I pointed to my boyfriend, looked at the surgeon directly and said, “So when can I have sex with him?”

There were chuckles and smiles. I was told it should be possible after the six weeks of recovery. And it was.

Recovery was not limited to the surgery; I began to recover the relationship I had with my vagina. For nearly a decade, there was mostly hate. Never hate for being a woman, but being a woman abnormal. Never had I identified my gender with my genitalia until the option of exploring my sexuality and sexual experiences was limited by an anomaly. When option was taken away, I felt shame. I felt fractured.

I take the shards now and put them together. Slowly, I am whole and healing. I struggled to find a sexual identity, and an identity connected to my body. Too often the world provokes the self-hatred of our bodies. It is a strong hatred, but after all the doctors, all the stresses, and all the trials, I have begun to let it go. I try to turn shame into pride, and seek a positive relationship with my vagina—and with my identity as a woman.

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We Are Bodies Natalya Cowilich

She says "It's been a long time coming," her red hair matted almost to her belly as she dances in the sun; she is nowhere near her kin, and adventure calls her.

She says, "be true to yourself."

When sticks snap on the path above, listen to your heart and your whiskers alike; when the brook runs dry remember times when you had muddy feet; when you feel hungry, remember a time when there was plenty to eat.

Someday, to those states, we will return.

"Pay attention to your body," she says.

She knows herself well, the fox.

She's learned to trust how her vertebrae bend on long journeys, and she feels when her ears perk up.

She says, "meditate in the grove.

Feel your innards not working for you, but being a part of you."

Fox says we are intestines, and appendixes, and tonsils, and it is not poetic.

Oh, but it is.

Love Story 12

Nora Snyder What if I am powered by orgasm? What if that amazing font of creation that resulted in four children is related to ALL of my powers of creation? Maybe I have an orgasm “solar” panel that stores up all that precious energy and infuses me with the ideas and the energy and the joy in stuff I do. Maybe those gut feelings aren’t actually from my gut. Those waves of pleasure don’t have to stop, they just transform. This gives a sacredness to a momentary climax. And reverence in the hallowed halls of my vagina.

Vagina is my word. I will never utter vulva nor yoni, my head filled with volvos and macaroni. I have a bit of a traditionalist streak so vagina is a perfect fit.

Come back, Vagina, don’t let me wait. The catholic girls start much too late. Sooner or later it comes down to fate, I might as well be the one.

Yuck! Thats the best this dude can come up with — “you’ll have sex at some point anyway so you might as well have it with me.” It’s even worse in a Jersey accent. You can do better Virginia!

If on my person resides a seat of wisdom, a barometer, a guide — it is certainly not in my head. My brain thinks too much. It is too clever, too indiscriminate, too aloof. It isn’t in my heart either. My heart belongs too much to others. It gets tugged this way or that and it’s totally biased. If I need a true voice, a deeply rooted core wisdom, I consult my vagina. She’s all mine. She never lies. She knows no alliances except with me. I’m bypassing the conflicting viewpoints of intellect and emotion and going straight to the source — right up my pudendal nerve and shooting out my little dendrites like fireworks!

I just finished Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf. It was an exquisite treatise and I highly recommend but I’m not going to rehash. This is just one of the trails it left.

I’ve heard of “feminine wisdom” before, and red tents and such but I felt a disconnect. It felt not mine, like just another unattainable thing. I associated it with women who craft their own deodorants, swap recipes for herbal remedies, and wear diva cups. All of which I admire! But it’s not me or at least it hasn’t been me so far. I assumed if I wasn’t a certain kind of woman, I would have to find my wisdom elsewhere. I’m wondering what other things I’m missing out on because of assumptions like this. But all the while, my vagina’s like, hello? I’m right down here!

Upon connecting with, and opening myself up to my own feminine wisdom, the reverberations became apparent right away. I am amazed at the power of this place. It has changed me. And although this gives me joy 13

personally, I look out the window at a contemptuous world. Vaginas are disrespected, reviled, abused. Women are being systematically cut to the quick. And before it’s assumed that I’m referring to war or other countries or genital mutilation (which I am as well), consider that MY daughters RIGHT HERE have a one-in-five chance of being raped while they are in college.

While receiving a higher education. This situation is untenable. Our vaginas and everything they create and every way that they inform, are under attack.

The first tangible thread from my awakening came in an interesting, if somewhat mundane, guise —food. Shouldn’t come as much as a surprise, vaginas know about “in” and “out.” What we put “in” is extremely important. I’ve found myself powerfully drawn to certain foods, only rivaled in pregnancy (of course). So I did a crazy thing, I shopped specifically for myself. No family food- no bulk sizes, no lunch packable snacks, no clutching of coupons and flyers…just me, in my favorite store, with my beautiful hippy woven African basket. I sniffed and squeezed and meandered my way through the store shopping from my vagina. I suffered no indecision. I was completely disrobed of “should,” my censoring brain was switched to idle. I knew intuitively exactly what was needed. It was about everything- the aroma, the texture, the appearance, the associations, and sometimes it was just pure vaginal instinct. I will never forget that feeling. The feeling of intention, deliberateness, being particular, and having clear vision and standards—FOR MYSELF. I was being choosy, only considering my own needs, taking my time. The experience of being so intrinsically driven was intoxicating! The stage has been set. I’ve stocked my green room. Clearly I am now a goddess.

More changes. Goddesses eat when they are hungry, period. I mean, she has so many important things to do and other modes of pampering to engage in. Goddesses unapologetically push away their plates when they are done or when they are bored or when they decide they want something else.

A goddess doesn’t deign to scarf the leftovers from the plates of others or polish off the end of the bag before it gets stale. Goddesses will only eat food prepared the way she likes it and she plans ahead for her OWN needs.

I leap over hurdles of “it’s too expensive” (it’s really not), “it’s too time consuming” (it’s really not). Those are lies from my brain designed to protect the uneasiness of my heart—not my dear, true vagina.

And then a bigger picture blooms…the things I do that make me feel good, they aren’t “have to’s” they are “want to’s.” And they aren’t at the bottom of some list. And they aren’t some dusty trite bullshit I got from a magazine, or I heard somebody else say. It’s all in here. If I’m tuned in I’ll feel my feminine goddess sense tingling and with a fist pounding, orgasmic YES! I meditate because it feels right. I do yoga because it feels right. I lift 14

weights because it feels right. I keep walking because it feels right.

Goddesses don’t wait around for the little people to get their shit together before they answer their desires—YES! YES! YES! Before when I’d ask myself (if I even got that far) what I needed in that moment, I would receive a blank buzz or some wholly unhelpful response like “I need a new house” or “I need to go to a tropical island.”

Anything to deflect from getting my needs met or expending any effort.

Now that I’m asking my vagina these questions, I’m getting answers, real ones. From now on when any woman asks me for guidance I will suggest she ask her own vagina. Either she’ll be on board or stop asking me.

So yeah, I’m getting healthier, stronger, lighter, quicker but this is by no means a dieting triumph or an inspirational weight loss journey. There is no “diminishing” going on here, if anything this is me getting bigger, taking up more space, and doing loop de loops in my orgasm powered jet pack. This is a love story, between me and my vagina.

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Para mi hermanol To My Brother

by Erika Hidalgo

Cooking is women's work, you say. The man at the market, he is the one working hard, away from boiling water and idle gossip. His arm drives a machete down and down and down again, until only pieces of formerly tall, proud sugar cane remain at his feet for us to buy.

When I reach for the bag, you take it instead and carry it all the way home, straight into the kitchen, where flames hug the sides of blackened iron pots, and the women slice sweet fruits, syrupy juices spilling over the table edge and dripping onto the heads of curious cats. It is Christmas Eve, the biggest test of women's work, the kind with tortilla flour pasted to cracked palms, pozole threatening to overflow from its pot, and simmering punch, its spiced candied steam spiraling to the ceiling. But sugar cane takes real strength, the kind only you have, to tear sharp bark from the stalk. So this job, you will do.

When you reach for the bag, four hands go with yours: our aunts', our eight year-old niece's, and mine. I have a machete of my own— a small rusting knife, the one with the splintered handle, the one our grandmother used. You can stay with us, and we'll blister our hands together.

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Thighs Like Silver Dollar Jade by an anonymous self-identifying queer poet Beautiful woman, I want to rock the baby inside of you to sleep with my lips.

Your belly is full like the moon.

I want to wane and wax you through the skies with my hips and our thighs will combine into one growing grandmother tree.

Your breasts bloom, your eyes are blueberries.

There are rivers in my hands for you, my eyes cry and my mouth moans for you because feeling your fingertips in me feels like liquid love and maybe a thousand fish.

A thousand nocturnal fish running up felt thighs like silver dollar jade. And, beautiful woman, if your baby wakes, she will be calmed by the rhythm of the love her mothers make.

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What Am I? Shira Adams I always thought I liked boys A lot.

Like a whole lot.

And I never gave A thought to my Own gender I don’t think.

But then I met Ashlee And we grew Close So we went Camping on the Cape.

We had wine And drugs in Weird concoctions And something happened that I do not remember.

She wouldn't tell me What it was Though she cried All night.

But I guessed correctly And for a year The world was Fuzzy Then I met K*****.

That was love Unmistakably. Just Like I felt 18

For David Zach and Jeremy And Noah You were always There. Through All of it.

You gave me your Ears and your Body.

I really loved you In my way Not like them.

Not like Ashlee And K*****. With Pretty curl and Silky thigh But Noah I’m Confused and you know About these things.

So please can you Tell me What am I?

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What I’m Left With Rebecca Dustar I. no lips to kiss inside this building tonight. rainbow lights strung around the walls a boy and girl slowly leaning over.

II. dresses lifted off legs and tights pulled to the ground during the dance. jewelry tapping collarbones in the loud chatter.

III. a couch and red cup spilled over the grey carpeting a missed a call, cheeks burning with jealousy over hands that are held.

VI. sliver of light from the moon and squirrels asleep between the bushes. quiet footsteps in the dark V. the crumpled pile of sheets on a mattress. the beep of an answering machine, a sore back in the morning.

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Apologies to Ten Strangers Kayla Volpe To Joshua who met me at Subway, who tried picking me up and convincing me to be a follower of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, I'm sorry that I wasn't straight with you.

I'm sorry I didn't explain that my radical atheism cuts deep. I'm sorry that someone told you it's okay for you to vomit bible verses on a stranger whose lunch you are interrupting. I'm sorry your God didn't teach you manners.

To Emmaleah who met me in the parking lot of the college, I'm sorry we didn't have more time. I'm sorry I lost your business card and I never came for my free massage.

But thank you for eavesdropping on my conversation with Jennifer about my Tumblr blog.

To Jennifer who met me in Abnormal Psychology with whom I later discussed my blog, I asked for your number in case I was ever absent from class. Not so we could play twenty questions. I'm sorry that this society taught you to mistake polite gestures as flirtation. I'm sorry that I accidentally led you on.

To my anonymous internet stalker: Jennifer, I know it's you.

I'm sorry that it's not going to work out for us.

To Phil who asked me to be his date to the fireman’s ball, gay means guest.

I'm sorry someone taught you that even when she says no she means yes.

I'm sorry your parents told you you'd grow out of your autism.

To Alan who met me while I was courting my future girlfriend in the library and impressing her with my knowledge of theoretical philosophical application, dude. Can you not see what was happening here?

To the asshole in grand central that heckled me and my girlfriend, I'm sorry you've never seen lesbians holding hands before.

I'm sorry that you felt the need to ask if we actually kiss each other.

I'm not sorry if you're offended by the fact that we also fuck each other.

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To the homeless woman in Amherst: I'm sorry I didn't have a cigarette to offer you that wasn't already lit. Thank you for offering to give me a dollar. I don't want your money. I want for you to be provided the help you need. But, if God is what gets you through, I hope He paves the way for you.

To the homeless woman in Cambridge who asked to bum a cigarette, I do know why the caged bird sings. For the thirty seconds we spoke I realized that we had more in common than half of the people I go to school with. I hope you walk to the rhythm of TS Eliot, often coming and going, thinking of Maya Angelou.

I'm sorry you hate my American Spirits.

To the girl I met five years ago at Amber’s party whose beautifully intricate ethnic name escapes me, I saw you. If I had a little more courage, I would have told you that you were beautiful. I know you said Amber only invited you because she pitied you. I know you said that they bullied you and tried to pull off your hijab. But I saw you, and you were beautiful. And if I knew your name I would have been at your funeral. I know they said your mother found you, hanged from your headdress.

When they told me, it was the first time I wished I could believe in religion.

In a heaven.

I'm sorry that I can't remember your name.

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“We Were Together. I Forget the Rest.”

Anonymous This is an excerpt from a much longer personal essay that has been published in other places.

They write abortion in print. On the phone they say termination, and in person they say procedure. The professionals leave nothing up for linguistic imagination--no rhetorical nuances that you can use to hide from your choice. But it is only in the final moment--the dragging-when you know for certain that no words or images can prepare you for the sensation of your pelvis collapsing in on itself, as if to cling to the tiny growth of cells. No amount of details given in pamphlets or testimonials can tell you that the uterus does not easily let go. Millions of years of instinct are too deeply woven to not put up a fight.

I could never be myself around his friends. Oh how I tried. Almost every interaction felt laced with condescension--I was under constant scrutiny to measure up to what I felt were preposterous standards. Their interests and activities revolved around foreign entities: No, I've never heard of that band. No, I've never been to that film/music festival. No, I don't have a smart phone. No, I've never done cocaine.

I will admit, I was strangely attracted to their fast-paced, care-free lifestyle.

Even their sense of entitlement was at first seductive.

For the most part, they ignored me. The boys openly objectified their girlfriends. The girls rapped about the latest in New Wave fashion. They knew where to get the best drugs. They had parents who paid their tuition.

They drank like they had no responsibilities. They all considered themselves to be the artistically enlightened ones of a generation surrounded by mediocrity. They lived in a world filled up with shallow things to die for.

Wealth is a social construct that can be defined only on a personal spectrum.

But every time he said, "My friends and I aren't that rich," the veil between us grew thicker, thicker--weaving into a quilt that left us stranded in two separate realities.

I understood theater: the use of charm, the art of acting. But underneath my trendy blouse was my appetite, the battle to find food, warm clothes, essence, and money. Underneath sex was desperation, underneath contempt was love, underneath all laughter was silence, a working class woman's silence.

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Despite all this, I loved him, fiercely. He was beautiful in a kind of quality that is often associated with great amounts of leisure time. He was buoyant like a child who had known neither loss nor sacrifice. I was enamored with his gentle nature, his careless stare. Whenever I saw him, he was all lit up like a slot machine. Flashing lights outlined his silhouette, a neon sign that said "Try Me" hung over his head. The closer I got, the louder my flight-system screamed Risky Business! Insecurity! Instability! Whistles and high-notes and sparks from a circuit about to blow. Colors that flooded my vision.

My mother used to tell me stories of the boys she knew in her modeling days.

"You can never forget who they're really involved with," she would say while touching up her lipstick. "Instant highs and easy fame. The moment you become more of a person and less of a vehicle, they'll drop you," her lips smacked, "thud."

So, it began how it always begins: it looked like fun.

Months later, when he was the stumbling drunk calling me a liar, forcing himself on me one minute and rejecting me the next, I remembered my mothers' words. Thud. Thud. Thud.

Pregnancy gives your skin a soft glow. It's not a cliché. Pregnancy makes your breasts so tender that you wear three layers of shirts in August.

Pregnancy makes your throat feel acidic. Pregnancy makes you yearn for corners to hide in, angels who you know won't bother.

The first time I lied was when I told him it was only a miscarriage. I had read somewhere that even if you missed taking your birth control pills for a few days, if you returned to taking them regularly, your body would most likely experience a miscarriage. I was sure that this would happen to me. The only thing I knew for certain was that I had made the choice to sleep with a young man who was likely to "drop" me, and it would be better if I dealt with this alone. An animal with an animal strength or something not human at all. Me, I told people, I take damage like a tank, a tank that locks and never opens, never backs down, never stalls or remembers. I represent all women who have known hunger, who have known damage; animals who lick no wounds.

No wounds, that is, until the dragging--lying on the table and losing, losing.

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For Cyclamen Shira Adams Your father Is an ogre.

Body of A man Hands arms Legs feet Brain of A child with a Fucked up Heart.

But he wanted to Keep you. I Did not.

Not with him. Not Now. Not Ever.

Your father Is an ogre. A Big fat ugly ogre Selfish, loveless, Except Under sheets Your father is an ogre And your Mother Is too.

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WATCHING HER SLEEP Katharyn Howd Machan This long past midnight, darkness is a way of life forever circling outward, hungry spiral where the hours meet the stars.

After milk, after arms’ embrace within our mirrored blue-eyed gaze, my newborn daughter lies beside me on my single bed where I sit watching the flicker of her dreams.

This tiny form, this curl of fist and curve of mouth, once grew inside me, part of every breath and step until she moved in her own oneness, daring to be born, all cream and roses and full joyful noise against the silence my own life had become.

Watching her sleep, I know a fierceness where my heart once beat alone and didn’t comprehend its loneliness, halfstanza of a poem that thinks itself complete. In this new reach of night where appetite 26

becomes a future, I find stillness makes warm certainty of time, each moment a calm rhythm more illuminating to my why than any reeling sunstruck day of inward rushing light.

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Hiccup Author: Jessie Lee Williams Part I One, two, three, the old in and out Tantric pumping of the hips Grinding bones turned to stone Caressing the pliant space between your legs You paraded your cunt in such a joyous manner When my lips touched your sullied oyster Part II Cut! No first time would be so good.

Part III Fumbling with the clasps of your dress Almost spitting in your ear I lose myself in the tangles of your panties Fuck, this is so hard.

I put myself in you. Well, almost in you.

You cushion me and I feel like a cock because all I could do was…

Hiccup.

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There is an Art to Spanking Anonymous There is an art to spanking.

A man once told me almost all of the women he had been with enjoyed being spanked—he even went as far as to conjecture that most women, as a whole, love being spanked. Now, I cannot begin to make such a sweeping statement, but this does perhaps underlie the urgency, at least in my mind, to discuss my own perceptions of the rights and wrongs.

How can there be a right and wrong to an inarguably kinky act? Isn’t the shame and wrongness of committing something so marginalized and naughty inherent in the act? I think there is definitely a set of standards to be upheld. I’ll give you two scenarios, see if the difference is as clear to you as it’s clear to me: --You’re on your hands and knees, in doggy-style with him enthusiastically riding behind you. He lays down his hand with a hard, resounding smack, making you twitch and recoil instinctively from the pain that blossoms forth. You grit your teeth and bear the feeling, not saying anything as that was just one slap—the others don’t have to be so bad—until he lays down another and another and another, until he’s smacking your bum over and over so hard while he thrusts that you withdraw into yourself and wince back at him. He just drags your hips closer to his and pushes your face into the pillows. The smirk you saw on his face makes you realize that he likes hurting you and he’s playing to see what you’ll take for him and how hard of a smack he can get away with. He’s too fucked up to really care about what he’s doing. *** He’s spread you across his lap, smoothing the open palm of his hand across you in what feels like a languid, aimless stroke. As you’re beginning to nestle into his embrace, he suddenly whips his hand down across your ass.

You jump up, startled at the pain, but before you know it his 29

hand is back at the spot again, ghosting over where he had smacked you, soothing.

“You like that? Oh, you’re so, so red.”

He lays his hand down again and again, continuing the rhythm of spanking and then soothing with his touch or pressing his lips against the inflamed skin in a kiss of apology.

The two of you soon get carried away and forget the kinky game.

He falls back on the bed, sighing long and contentedly, “God, I don’t think I’ve ever spanked anyone that hard before, sweetie.”

--Which scenario would you rather be in? Which of the two scenarios is most healthy, which has the most communication and consent, and which connotes a relationship of mutual respect?

By no means am I saying that you can’t like it rough or take pain if you want to, but as you can see it’s sometimes easy to fall into the trap of letting someone abuse you, especially when you’re into s&m or any kind of kinky play. Never, ever be afraid to set boundaries or to stop in the middle of sex if someone is hurting you or crossing the line. You’re not an object no matter how much of a kinky slut you may be!

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Don’t Call Me Baby Rebecca Dutsar The red dress I had on today was not mine, it was hers, chosen to fit her body, one size larger, that I happened to slip on before slipping out the door because it was light and bright and I needed something that wouldn’t be battered down by the sun upon the southern hill.

I did not ask for your compliments, your gazes, eyes shoved tightly against my body to keep your tongue from lolling out your mouth.

My red dress was not a red light a red stop sign or a red kiss stain upon your cheek or other unfortunate part of your body.

The dress is a dress as I am I and you and you and we are still strangers.

Do not wave your middle finger in the air as I pass and reply that no, I simply do not want to fuck you.

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"To CHARLES BOWDEN (with apologies to Patricia Lockwood)"

By Charlotte Butler think: how sick a girl can get of generous hips. you: in bed with your lover and her generous hips. you run your hands over her generous hips. she opens like a mundane flower, one of many, with generous hips. at a glass-topped table in a glass restaurant, you are fixedly staring down into the generosity of those hips on which she sits. and the waitress, too, hands you a menu from generous hip height, and a stranger holds a gas pump in perilous proximity to generous hips, you crane your neck to see the jeans cradling, on a sidestreet sexy como tan sexy, as the song says generous hips, moving through space, nothing below or above worth the mention. (except the breasts, which spill, inevitably - deceptively anarchically from a shirt or a dress or a corset or the male gaze, whatever, and which you note, giving credit where due. magnanimous.) the joke is that you see the snakes in this desert, chthonic deities all, as phallic symbols. of course. the joke is that you live with them, 32

lay with them, still can never seem to see eye to eye with them. still they curl by your chair, viperous ciphers. you cannot conceive of a female pursuing her mate into a hole. this is not in the literature. this is not of your literature. the joke is that every depth is closed to you. nothing below the earth, nothing below the waves, nothing below the surface except what you can seize, squid and nets. throats and breasts. generous hips. the joke is that you think that what you take is given. the joke is that you call all those hips generous.

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Soul Sista Anonymous she picks bad vibes outta her teeth like toothpick forests, arrests them like a lumberjack mafia, evil feels, she detests them, confesses them, holds her demons to the walls with a shotgun peace, love, preachin it, you drinkin summa her poison-That poison, it's punchin like the man in the drum line she hits the beats, she's rollin it in time with the bass line she's smokin it out one side, out the other, eatin peaches, standing on a soap box of dirty fingernails, she preaches, "It's green, green everything, raining down oxytocin you'll be bouncin outta atmospheres after ingesting summa this lovin so put yas prayas where yas hands are and build God out of cardboard boxes we be livin peace peace, piece a this gotcha mattering" And with a deck a cards, a fat cigar, life ain't been no 'crystal ladder' while them poor kids growin poorer, greedy wallets growin fatter but she swears there come a time when these hierarchies will shatter and if they never shatter, then some day, she says, they will not matter

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Hey Marquette

By Sheena Leigh Morrow Once it seemed our ’84 Triumph Could easily attain low Earth orbit Just a couple hours' drive or so We could start off at the bottom Of Shumway Hill Road And just keep the car pointed up I sold that old car a while back And lost my faith In the closeness of the cosmos But I was reminded of it When your new name came up Last comma first On the caller ID At the office yesterday morning I pictured you On the other end of the line You wore a straw-colored blouse With wavelike pleats Over your soft postnatal belly And you had on a gold pendant A compass or chronometer Or some kind of maritime curio And I thought about singing A love song into the receiver In a sultry Stevie Nicks voice Something like “Hey Marquette I remember you in sunshine Back when we lived in Planck time Sweet wine and cigarettes And dancing on the dark rocks After the sunshine crept away” Instead I murmured “One moment please” And transferred you To your desired extension

35

Tonight I Walked My Dog Liz Enwright Tonight I walked my dog. & I only wish it were that simple.

-Today I trimmed, shampooed, conditioned, dried & styled my new hair.

I wore make-up, a padded bra, high heels, a necklace, a bracelet, a bright pink dress. I thought nothing of it: walking around in the daytime, walking on campus & shopping with my best friend.

But then I came home. Hungry, and exhausted; my head pounding & my dog barking. Nothing could placate her. Letting her roam in my small backyard just wasn't enough. So I took a deep breath, picked myself up-and headed to my room to change.

My choice of pajamas -- gym shorts and cotton tank top -- extracted themselves from my body before I could form a thought.

Immediately, I traded my skin-bearing outfit -- fit for a hot autumnal night at home -- for things much more appropriate for a Late Night Walk Alone.

Without even realizing it, I began searching for the most 'masculine' clothing: an ex-boyfriend's hoodie, an old friend's t-shirt, my brother's jeans, my father's hat and shoes. I donned them, after removing the pushup bra and wishing I could make my 38-D's go away.

I remember looking in the mirror.

I remember wishing my eyelashes weren't so long, that my eyebrows weren't so coiffed. I remember thinking 'does my face still look too feminine?' 'could I pass as breast-less?'

I pawed through kitchen drawers and cupboards. I found a paring knife my dad keeps hidden away.

I removed my cellphone from my purse, thinking of the numbers NINE and ONE and ONE. I transferred my Senecas from feminine accessory to jeans pocket, 36

Â

thinking of the friend-of-a-friend, who once saved her own life, by putting out her lit cigarette in her anonymous attacker's eye. in. his. eye.

-The truth is, no one approached me.

I don't live in a bad neighborhood.

I'm not exactly physically defenseless.

I'm small but solid & raised by policemen.

I know about pressure points, groin kicks.

But I have to admit: It was all I could think of.

Not shaking, not anxious, but uncharacteristically alert.

Aware. Awaiting. & so so relieved to get the key in the door, unharmed.

-It's cool and all, how Martin Luther King dreamed of a world where his kids would be judged on character, not color.

But I'd like to dream of a future world where my daughter could just walk. her. fucking. dog.

 37Â

Red Inspired by Edward Hopper’s painting “Nighthawks” Rebecca Dustar A woman, whose hair and dress resemble the color of the building where he finds her walking alone.

It is three- too early to eat.

He got off work early and stopped her on the street, flashed a gun inside his pocket and they enter the diner.

Her arms tremble over the counter.

There are unattended children at home, and she knows he will drag her, roll her over in the dark, break her branches and pick off her leaves.

She worries he may carve his name into her fruit at fourwhen the rest of the workforce is too busy speeding home to help.

They do not make eye contact.

He slips red magic into her drink while she stares at her legs, hoping blood will run down them and stain his trousers.

She prays that the man across the bar will look up and say something.

She prays that her children will not ask.

38

Response to Remarks of Ignorance Kayla Volpe “There are just too many poems about rape,” he said.

And that’s just the problem.

Not the poems, the He. He said it.

It must be hard to imagine what it’s like when He’s so far removed When He didn’t wake up this morning with some inner thigh bruising.

But he says: she must just be looking for attention, in a way she knows that she’d gain some sympathy.

While He sits numbly in the audience listening to another woman share her sob story.

Her story.

But it seems that History is, well, His-story, and it repeats itself, He hears the same thing over and over, get over it, He thinks.

“It’s getting old.” He says, while he troubles through another troubled youth whining about the party she got drunk at and someone took her mumble as a yes as He wandered his fingers up her dress...

But they're just attention seekers, all these women with stories.

“But I would never rape anyone,” he said.

Do you want a gold medal?

If you can write a poem about anything, why would everywoman choose the same thing, it seems their either rape victims or conflicted lesbians, and lesbihonest, who would ever rape a lesbian?

Dear men who think this way, you’re the poster children for rape culture.

You’re the inevitable soldiers of America’s patriarmy, you’re the forefathers of the troubled daughters whose story you’ve already heard and ignored, you’ve already become numb to you’ve heard a thousand stories and to you they’re all the same.

Did you ever think that maybe she chose to write about something she wanted others to know about, she chose to shed light on the black sheep of the shielded Anglo Saxon America 39

she chose to tarnish illusions of perfection in personkind she chose to share her story because her legs have separation anxiety. she chose to entrust this information because she’s working on trusting again.

Your attitude inspires poems entitled “You know you live in a rape culture when..” and more people to write about why we need feminism, again.

Your attitude inspires a revolutionary non exclusionary addition of her story into history because He said there are too many rape poems because He said it.

Because He stands for America Because He stands for Pro life Because He is the literal building block of the word heteronormativity Because he should be proud of the Land of the Free Speech and the Home of these Brave Women.

There are men who don’t think this way, There are men that don’t need to be told There are “He’s who have been betrayed at the hands of his and hers Do not fall silently This fight is all of ours Invisibility is their battle cry But words are your weapons, too.

Simon Says let her go, when she says no.

It’s that simple, Simon says that shirt is hers so take your hands off her person she was just swinging on the tire swing twisting around She was just playing on the playground while you're holding her back by her belt loops telling her that her short hair makes her look like a boy as if its a bad thing scolding her because she's playing on your turf with your friends yesterday you played king of the hill and told her she can’t win because she’ll never be a king she’s just a girl Let her go, when she says no you’re bullying her for looking just like you wearing the same high top shoes tearing her t-shirt because it’s not pink like it should be it’s black and blue Like the bruise from when you pushed her from the top of the jungle gym 40

because your Uncle Jim told you that girls are supposed to have long hair and hers doesn’t touch even her shoulders now she’s crushed like pieces off the playground boulder you watch her tumble down. …You know that not everything falls into place because glass doesn't defy gravity it shatters like dreams in jars with invisible lids held down by old fashioned values and gender fashioned stereotypes.

She dreamt of being a boy.

Let her go when she says no its that simple, Simon says don’t touch her if she didn't ask you to.

Don't think your anatomy downstairs can solve the female crisis don't "just do," THINK ...and when she bites you remember that you must have been asking for it the way you flashed your precious member promiscuously in front of her how dare you show that much of your skin in the presence of a lady When she said no, she didn't mean “maybe” They raised you thinking women are born to drive men crazy, but do yourself a favor Respect her wishes, and when she leaves get off your ass and do your own dishes Let her go when she says no, it’s that simple Simon says No is not short for “Not today, maybe tomorrow” it’s blunt for get the fuck away from her Your prick is not a magic wand So abra cadabra *POOF!*, make your ignorance disappear and stop wondering why a rape cultural revolution is absolutely a legitimate fear it’s as real as the paranoia she feels walking to her car by herself it’s as real as the inability to “shut that shit down” even after a Plan B and a prayer it’s as real as fathers preaching daughter’s wardrobes like preachers teaching abstinence 41

it’s as real as intolerance on the playground when Sally said she wanted to be Simon, And Simon says… you pushed him down.

Just, let her go when she says no.

Just let her go.

I want to be that teacup after Thomas Fucaloro When I break my shot glass, I try to sip through the cracks: whiskey dripping down sides sticky to fingers clenching longingly to the broken pieces, I need to hold something again.

So I have aspired to belly light blooming to boom blast!

Big bang myself into blossoming incarnation the self I yearn to be but can’t I am pretty sure that shot glasses and spoons are similar in the way that reflections in spoons are warped.

Upside down.

But I don’t take whiskey by the tablespoon.

At my favorite bar, kaleidoscopic diamonds dance mirrors at the bottom of the glasses.

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I will wear two on my eyes to see light dance through them and people dancing in the light and hope it reflects back on to me.

Never the spotlight, always the poet.

I struggle with the image of person that shares alone fingering the shot glass Little poet girl.

Little poet girl?

Poet woman?

Woman? Poet?

Sometimes I think of how easy it would be to be a man but how difficult it would be to become one.

I stand erect when I know I should slouch because men stand upright and tall in this bar.

I am no more man than the next poet with pants packed to show how much woman we are comfortable losing.

I am tightly bound in this skin, exposed to the world through drunken goggles.

Drunken glasses.

I see swirly faces of people who have a name they call me to which I respond with a smile, because in this world, this bar world, I have to smile.

But I don’t have to mean it.

43

He Stole Me Rebecca Dustar I went to the party and did not ask to be touched I only asked to wear the flowers in my hair because I thought they were pretty and let’s face it how often do I wear color anyway Never and now I have more of a reason than ever to don grey and black clothing and paint my lips a red so deep it is almost brown almost purple a color so bruised that to hold it against my lips I must harden my entire face sharpen my eyes and look just as cruel as him Something is gone but I can’t point my finger to what it is exactly Maybe it is my finger itself or maybe it is my whole being body and soul together and I don’t have enough fingers to point to it The flowers are in the trash now long gone with the mix old dirty tissues and blood crusted white cotton gauze and I am here on my bed still shaking like he only just let go Let me go 44

Voice Nora Snyder Some restrictions are largely unique to woman.

Slow down.

Calm down.

Sit down.

We are reprimanded, ostracized, or minimized if we get too loud, too big, too much a part of the conversation. Our emotions are seen as a liability, and dangerous in their expression. We are encouraged to “think of others” when we speak. Despite that we caused no injury. When men’s voices are loud and strident they are usually embraced—they galvanize a nation, they lead us into war. A man has a voice that sounds reasonable. No need for substance or legitimacy, rarely interrupted or significantly challenged, I mean after all—he did show up and he is male.

Women’s voices are received with a much more measured response. There is a low level assumption that she is shrill and demanding, biting the hand that feeds her. Her questions are rarely food for thought, just an unwanted diversion that invites a dumbed down reiteration. A woman’s strong words are seen as more dangerous, more hurtful, more personal, more spiteful.

There’s always a good excuse to shut us down. Our freedom is trumped by the comfort of others. Our creative thinking is derided as ”besides the point” or “clouding the issue” and if all else fails, we just aren’t taken seriously and then the rest is just wasted energy. This isn’t just a disconnect between genders, women do it to women too. It has become pervasive, the way of the world. But men are on top of the food chain while we scrap and scramble to grab onto the bottom rung.

When I feel silenced in this way, it comes to roost in a fashion that I suspect is also unique to woman. I immediately feel a closing in, a self-protection, a shrinking. Capacity for intimacy is nil. The world’s colors are dialed down. I have one foot in for appearance sake and one foot out, it hurts too much to be all in. And there is also a twinge of disgust; I am self-alienated and repulsed by my helplessness. It requires recovery time.

Before I started focusing my awareness on vagina related issues, I couldn’t identify where this state of being came from. Let’s call it “generalized oppression.” I’d move in and out like a ghost, convinced *I* am the problem.

45

*I* am the blockage. *I* am the impediment. And like many women, I am ninja at going into semi-hibernation and just “getting through.” And I’m not talking about getting through crisis, I’m talking about “getting through” normal life. Padding around, trying not to wake anyone. Trying to exist conservatively, not overflowing our containers, and leaving plenty of room for others. Careful to leave not a footprint nor a broken branch behind as evidence of our own lives. Like if we dare to inhale fully, we may bump somebody else out of place.

Women act out with food, money, and sex. A self-destructive attempt at sovereignty. But overindulgence isn’t fullness. Giving it all away isn’t abundance. Materialism does not equal dignity. And control does not make competence.

And now the icing on the shit cake—Hobby freaking Lobby. Does anyone remember Sunday school spirituality? The golden rule, turn the other cheek, love thine enemy, universal love and acceptance…the only political connections were crusades against poverty and homelessness. We were on the side of Dr. King! But now the public face of Christianity is all penis pumps and border children rejection. Are they borderline human? What a loss! I feel another stone being placed on my generalized oppression. We are encouraged to stay still—don’t speak, it will be easier that way.

But even in my state of checking out and ghost walking, I see a light. My own intrinsic creative drive being mirrored in the eyes of so many other women stepping outside the box and into a counter culture of appreciation.

Developing our own standards, our own language. I am warmed by this.

Grow little seed, grow. I am captivated by the voices of women. Their stories, their shouts, their laughs, their murmured confidences. I’ve two girlfriends on the radio. I listen rapt, dripping sponge still in my hand.

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them feminisms dont call it oppression for nothin Anonymous she said you gotta be strong woman them feminisms dont call it opression for nothin so when you snappin at me and you snappin at somethin when you dont go to the river no more no more you dont bathe your hair no more you dont talk to no one no more this is you fallin on your knees and poundin your fists to the sky you born a woman, born a woman you gotta get up, you aint a elephant for nothin you aint a angry beaver for nothin you aint one a them red bulls for no reason girl you aint poundin on the ground for no reason neither this your cry to them clouds, this your asking for grace but woman, you done all can you do all can you do is gonna get on up

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BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE Prose about my braless summer.

by Andie Millares “Bounce bounce bounce,” he sings at me like a jingle in an advertisement for a children’s toy. “You’re gorgeous. Whoever your man is I know he’s happy.”

Words yelled at me on a street are about as useful to me as advice written on the bathroom stalls of bars. “Dance like no one is watching!” “You’ll never be as young as you are right now.” “Carpe diem!” etc. My lower back is sweating through my gray jersey dress and I gave up bras two months ago because I thought it was time for my tits to finally experience gravity, which they had not in a decade. Two presidents with back-to-back terms in the Oval Office and my tits have not bounce bounce bounced in public with the exception of trips to the curb with trash bags in hand and the grocery store—the latter would only occur if I were dressed in an oversized sweatshirt.

What is this burden I’m carrying made of (re: guilt, shame), and who am I carrying it for? I feel the same way about bras as some people feel about button -ups with neckties or spandex tights or high heels, but the difference is that no one expects anyone to wear button-ups and neckties or spandex tights or high heels every time they’re in public. Lest I be an offender to the “decent” or a source of titillation to the “not-so-decent” the fault is still my own for living in my body on a planet that has a gravitational pull and wanting to prevent a ring of sweat droplets from forming under my breasts.

And my choices have consequences, I know; the pot is hot, so use a pot holder, my dad would say. But other’s opinions on what I do with my body are room temperature, so why do I need a pot holder? Of course, my boyfriend likes it when my tits bounce bounce bounce and I like that he likes it, so why am I upset if this guy likes it? It’s only natural. It’s a compliment. It’s creepy. It’s not his fault, it’s mine. It’s not my fault, it’s his. This pain at the bottom of my stomach has to be self-inflicted otherwise it couldn’t hurt this much and he’s screaming at me “I need someone like you in my life.”

Suddenly I’m so aware of my tits bounce bounce bouncing like I’m carrying the 48

weight of all cat-call victims on my chest. Training bras did not prepare us for this kind of fear and guilt—but we did not set the traps we are falling into.

“On some real shit, though,” he’s still barking at me, “I’mma find you.” My eyes are wet now and my heartbeats reach a running speed. I wish I could stop the bouncing, but I can’t run without bouncing at the same time.

So I bounce. I run and bounce away, and despite this instance, I will keep bouncing. I will bounce because I have to go get groceries, and because I like taking walks. I will bounce to catch up with a friend I spot on the street. I will bounce because I’m late to work. I will bounce because my nipples do not require censorship, I won’t have tiny photoshopped stars covering the bumps, the same way I don’t hide my nose and lips and elbows. I bounce because worse things have been said to me with a bra on than “bounce bounce bounce.” I bounce in support of those who don’t want to or can’t bounce.

Mostly, I bounce because it’s fucking hot outside and bras are not sweat resistant.

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Seasonal Affective Disorder Kayla Volpe Spring is the perfect time to fall in love.

Warming frost bitten toes between frozen hands just to be closer, Making friction out of sheets of melting icicles and drip drying from hot showers.

Cold noses as cause for conversation about science or music or favorite famous paintings of noses.

First hikes of the season of together, getting lost in each other’s under brushed minds, entangling limbs in such ways that make trees envious of how deep roots can be between two spring lovers.

Fall is the perfect time to fall apart.

Crushing leaves left under heavy boots, downtrodden grey-scaling the colors of Upstate New York through grey colored glasses.

Watching lover become ex lover become breath exhaled into swirling thought condensation.

Cold waterfalls drying out, earth’s tear ducts weeping with you, drip drying in cold showers spent sitting naked, alone, letting it all hit hard.

Everything is dying with you.

It will only get colder.

Spring is the perfect time to fall back in love with the season of seasoning each other with flowers, apologies made into a bouquet of thorned tomato plants, the tomatoes are bruised.

You are windburned.

You are blistered.

You survived the winter, but you are blistered.

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Alone, you plant seeds in the garden and wait for the light.

The warmth.

The memory of the summer memories to sing hymns to your growth.

You are warm now, but you are weathered.

You are blistered.

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We Become, We Become, We Become

by Natalya Cowilich Not a day for big words, she could only speak in shaking tambourines separated by slices of moldy whole-wheat bread slapped with marmalade, she wasn't afraid of all the mistakes she's made like dropping every Grade A egg to the floor.

She, like that Bare Naked Ladies song, was "trying to see the world beyond her front door," trying to calculate how many revolving microwaves and "have a nice days" it would take until she could hold on to something more.

Doesn't sleep with enough people, she's "prude," sleeps with too many, she's a "whore," how many words does it take to get to the center of what are we living for?

And we might keep writing her into the novels of our lives.

There might be Palmetto juice covering her hands.

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Mama Nora Snyder I tumble down the rabbit hole well underground. If not safe, then at least hidden. Am I for real? Does any of this matter? Am I full of shit?

I’m forty. I am defined by my children. I’ve been parenting for seventeen years, pretty much my entire adult life. Its culmination (although I am far from done) has resulted in the advancement and success of everyone around me. But I didn’t get a diploma, nor a gold watch. I don’t feel legit. My work in the realm of home and family, although appreciated and needed, gets no air time. Nobody is interested in the art or science. There is not even language or an existing paradigm to discuss my seventeen years. What the hell would I put on a job application? What am I left with?

It cracks me up when people say “I could never be happy just being a stay at home mom.” For one reason, the stay at home moms I know are all kinds of secret and not so secret things. Filling the gaps of society’s needs, seeing things that not many others see, creating stuff totally independently and out of the box unpaid with little support. I’ve never met this mythical stay at home mom that does nothing but custodial care of her home and children. But that aside, the happy part kind of kills me. I’m blessed to have much joy in my life but the pursuit of personal happiness was never really the driving force behind my decision making, nor has it ever been a permanent one time decision. Like most mothers before and after me, I do what needs to get done at any given time and under any given circumstance.

Sometimes school doesn’t work for your family. Sometimes your kids have disabilities. Sometimes your marriage implodes like a zeppelin.

Sometimes you get pregnant again. And you do what needs doing. I spent a good chunk of my seventeen years with bubbling anxiety about the welfare of my marriage and children, sometimes at a simmer and sometimes at a full roll. Will they be ok? Am I doing enough? Like a fucking wishbone lodged in my throat only recently freed. Is this what necks feel like? Its so much easier to breathe…

So I guess what I am left with is—YES I did enough. And I can and will do whatever needs doing. Because I have a proven track record. Below is a letter. A small attempt to connect with and 53

encourage a younger me and those still in the blur.

Dear Mama, I see you. What you do matters. You matter. Don’t let anyone tell you your life is on hold. Breathe deep. Don’t let anyone denigrate who you are or what you do right now. It’s no less important than what you did before. Take off that martyr’s robe. It’s too heavy and it doesn’t fit. Sit back and take a moment to be in awe of what you’ve done. You. Made. People.

Sure, it’s frustrating and mundane at times and there is bound to be some heartache, but that’s not all it is. Motherhood is not something to “get through” so you can get on with your real life.

Motherhood is the realest life. The most raw, most challenging, most transformative, and most epic of all adventures. Chin up, be proud.

You are strong. Those rocking and nursing arms could pull someone from a burning building. You are a Zen master, the calm in the eye of a storm. You have x-ray vision—your ability to make inferences from scant context and predict future outcomes is astounding. You are a scientist in a laboratory of your own making, testing theories, gathering information, and conducting experiments.

You are a Jedi, capable of manipulating the energy of an entire home and its occupants. Your powers of executive function are a wonder to behold, which is good because your family’s survival likely depends on it. The art of negotiation? Let’s just say the world is lucky you are on the side of angels. You are the arbiter of all things fair and just.

That productive womb of yours has infused you with creative power, you have more ideas, you see bigger. No matter the interruptions, no matter the lack of cooperation, you get shit done. You are a logistical ninja. If you were tortured, what could they do to you? Sleep deprivation? (seriously?) Pain? (no biggie) Sensory overload? (are you kidding?)

You are un-fucking-breakable, mama.

But I know it’s hard. I know sometimes it feels like too much.

I know that it’s easy to lose who you are with so much resting on your shoulders. You feel shell-shocked. You know who else gets shellshocked? A warrior. You are fighting the good fight mama, none of this is futile. But no worries, sweetness. When it gets overwhelming.

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When your ass has had its last kick. Show up at my door. Collapse onto my carpet. Speak only in grunts and tears. No need to be lucid because I get it, I do. I will hold this energy for you.

But trust me, dear one. It’s worth it. I’m not talking about the kids. For YOU. This strength, this fortitude, this creativity, this higher intelligence will serve you for the rest of your days. You aren’t accomplishing in spite of motherhood, but on the contrary, as a result of it.

Put THAT on your resume.

Love, Nora

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MY STONE IS SARDONYX Katharyn Howd Machan mother, not my mother only(?) woman who bore me

I search for you through half‐hidden stories, his blank pauses, her lowered lids

the night I began, near Hallow’s Eve, you were seventeen—did you dress as a Gypsy that year?

I see you holding your boyfriend’s hand, his eyes brown and steady as mine in the mirror

will the smell of leaves stay with you forever?

Pumpkins grinning as his hands held your hips?

twenty years now I have lived with others, your unknown name like a ghost at heart’s edge

I call you She‐ Who‐Once‐Touched‐the‐Moon and I wake aching in October light 56

Â

Fertile Cherry Tree Natalya Cowilich She weaves cherries through her hands, ripened into ropes stretching over traveled rivers.

Red, bulbous fingerprints rest on the outstretched tips of her arms, birthed in bunches of three.

Bows bend in the wind, her bark arching into an open mouth drinking from dark, purple ponds.

She dips her identity in the breeze, an image spinning inside the gentle croaking eyes of frogs floating on lily pads, eyes like drops of dew glazed over with spring.

She breathes that dew; long, gasping, and sweet.

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The Tampon

by Alexa Salvato You lock eyes with yourself in the mirror.

Come on. You can do this. Think of all the brilliant badass women who have come before and pulled it off. Who have done so, so much more. You can surely manage this. You rack your brain.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton! Wait, just kidding. That was too long ago. Um… Rosie the Riveter! She wasn’t real. Fine. Leslie Knope!

She’s not real either. But Amy Poehler plays her character on TV! That works. But… ew. You don’t really want to think about that. But that is not what you’re thinking about; you’re just seeking some inspiration, some reminder that this is not an insurmountable feat.

Fine, people in real life. Every adult woman you know, probably. You try to think of one specifically; of course, your mind is suddenly vacant. Who is totally awesome? Your fifth-grade teacher, the one who taught you that woman could be spelled with a “y” instead of an “a.” She was so cool.

Wait, why did you even think of that? That was even worse than Amy Poehler.

You are having a lot of trouble learning how to insert a tampon.

Your mom doesn’t use tampons, and even if she did, there’s no way in hell you’d ask her for any help. With anything, of course, but this especially. You bought a whole box of tampons the last time you were at Target with your mom. You put it in the cart, extracted it from the bag in the trunk of the car, kept it in your purse on the way home, and pretended your mother didn’t see it. You have reserved a few hours of this end-of-August day expressly for the purpose of inserting this device into your body.

You read the instructions on the back of the box first, but that’s not enough. You then read the more detailed packet inside. Ok, breathe. It’s ok.

You extricate the tampon from its little white plastic bag case.

White and smooth and bright, it reminds you of something from a movie. Maybe in the future in space they will grow flowers like that.

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Instead of some bleached cottony mystery coming through the other side, a nice little daisy will pop up instead. Wouldn’t that be nice?

God, how do these thoughts even enter your head? Focus.

Still cradling it in your hand, you push the applicator bottom through to the other side, and stare at the domed cylinder that comes out.

That is going into your body? That thing? Environmentalists don’t even want to use bleached diapers on babies’ little bottoms anymore. This is definitely bleached, and it is literally going into you!

Then again, you’re doing all this for varsity swim team, where you willingly submerge yourself in chlorine for two hours a day, each day, for two months straight. Still… this feels worse. Invasive. Like contact lenses. But this is even scarier, because you cannot monitor it constantly. When you wear contacts you’re always worried all day, asking Caitlin to check them, and she always fixes them when something goes wrong. That’s clearly not an option here… Ew! Ew again! What the hell is wrong with you?

Maybe nothing. It’s so fucking annoying, how everything related to sex is automatically stigmatized. Getting your period isn’t all that related to sex in daily life, especially not when you’re a fifteenyear-old virgin who just wants to swim without worry. This shouldn’t be gross. So many things are tossed into the “sex” category. Tampons.

The word “vagina.” Why? When your class dissected the fetal pigs in seventh grade, each student had to individually identify the insides of his or her own dead pig for the teacher. You remember how all the girls’ voices shrunk as they identified the tiny little “ovary.” But really, ovary. Vagina.

Spleen. It should all be the same, right?

But you’re a part of it, too. This menstruation business, at least, has always been at least a little stigmatized for you personally. You remember your fifth-grade “checkup” where your doctor and your mom were whispering right in front of you about whether you mom had told you about periods; your mom said no. (Apparently yours, whatever it was, was “fast approaching.”) The doctor asked if your mother would inform you when you returned home.

Your mom said no, again.

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And the doctor was like “Um, then I have to” and your mom was like “Are you sure?” and little beyond-naïve you was squirming on the crinkly white paper trying to figure out what was going on…

So the doctor then gave you a brief and terrifying description of menstruation as your mom refused to make eye contact with the both of you. In the car afterwards, as you just silently pleaded for a wordless ride and to get back to school before your multiplication exam, she asked half-heartedly if you had any questions.

You asked her if it just happened once. Like, if each person only got her period once. Imagine your terror when it was announced that this would continue to happen essentially forever, and repeatedly.

Of course, you too would get your period within the year. Your mom wouldn’t believe you when it happened, not till you angrily pulled off your blood-stained underwear and tossed it out the bathroom door into the hallway for her to observe. She still expressed some doubt.

Anyway, getting one’s period shouldn’t be such a source of humiliation and shame in this day and age. Right?

But now is not the time for these thoughts, for you are still standing with your rainbow-striped socks and denim shorts around your ankles in your family’s bathroom.

You sigh in temporary resignation, pull up your underwear and shorts and sit on the toilet seat. You re-read the toxic shock syndrome warning on the pamphlet and shudder. You see that on the Tampax website they have a video with an animation showing exactly how the inserting of a tampon looks on the inside of your little reproductive system. This gives you such ease, but still, you can’t exactly watch this video on your family computer—until you remember that your mom isn’t even home.

You go into your parents’ bedroom, unplugging your mom’s laptop from beside her bed, and taking it quietly into your own room.

You lay on your stomach, propped up on your elbows, and watch the detailed eight-second video. You watch it three times, perhaps four.

Maybe this isn’t so bad. You read the Wikipedia article on toxic shock syndrome; false alarm, this is just as bad as you initially believed.

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But you’re just going to have to pull it together. Forget about all the badass women who blazed trails and all that—think about all of the average, even dumb girls who are able to do this daily. If they can, then why the hell can’t you?

You re-enter the bathroom, suddenly determined. There is some fumbling. You find your mom’s make-up mirror and try to see what’s actually going on, despite how intensely uncomfortable this makes you feel. Hey, this is news; there really isn’t a wrong hole to go with! Must have been an urban legend. There really is just one option!

However, you feel like you’ve suddenly made the mirror unclean; it hasn’t touched a thing, but because of what it has seen. The mirror was, physically, very smudgy before you even touched it.

You’re in the bathroom, so you reach into the medicine cabinet, pull out the sterile alcohol and cotton balls, and cleanse the mirror until it is gleaming. You take the sixth tampon out of the box, and there were only eighteen to begin with. Your first swim practice of the season is in four hours. Can you do it?

Just like nearly everyone else, you’ll be fine.

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THANK YOU to all of our contributing writers!

It takes courage to share your personal stories—well done!

Reading submissions was an empowering delight.

A big thank you to Maureen Kelly —I couldn’t have put this together without you. Thank you to Devon and Emma who never fail to tolerate me and constantly educate me about things I never knew. Thank you, Planned Parenthood and all those involved in supporting Planned Parenthood, for fearlessly providing safe spaces for women to realize their agency.

A big thanks to the sociology department at Ithaca College for inspiring my passion for social justice, and a big thank you to the writing department. Not only would I lack the editing and review skills needed to make this any flavor of professional, but, without you, I most certainly would lack the courage and strength to even think about creating a literary magazine in the first place. A special thank you to Kathryn Machan, whose kindness is deeper than Mary Poppin’s purse —you're the best mentor anyone could ever ask for. Thank you Vera Whisman. You have no idea how much your Intro. To Women’s Studies class freshman year at Ithaca College changed my life.

Thank you to Don Austin, who runs the Diversity Peer Education Program at Ithaca College—thanks to CCLR and all the DPE learning and bonding, and educational, I feel empowered and equipped to keep social justice in my life. CCLR (Cross Cultural Leadership Retreat) allowed me to meet Devon Ritz, and she is the reason why I’m able to be an education and outreach intern 62

at Planned Parenthood in the first place, making this magazine possible. Thank you to Michele Lenhart for leading the Women & Leadership Retreat and giving me the agency I need to learn about women’s rights.

Thank you Mr. William Hynes, for fueling my passion for literature and writing in the first place—you have put me on the road I am traveling down today.

A big thank you to my friends. Y’all are my family, and I’m so grateful you endure my quirky passions. Thank you so much for the support; staying up late during girl’s nights, talking about being a woman within the patriarchy. Y’all are the pilot lights for my social -justice, raise-up-your-voice fire.

Thank you to the ladies of my family. May your bad-ass-ness never die. Y’all are strong as hell. Much love. A special thanks to my Momma, for teaching me strength in moments when you couldn’t be strong. For testing the limits of my empathy, for broadening my boundaries of forgiveness. You’ve taught me the gift of understanding. For loving through unloving times.

Thank you, world, for giving me so much to think about. I’m glad to be spending this life on Earth with you all. So grateful.

Peace and Realness, Natalya Cowilich April 2015

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