This woman

       God I can talk. I don’t know how long I could talk for if I didn’t have to stop. I always have to stop.

       I am a woman. Most of the time I feel able for the days, but when I am possessed by my hormones the hard surface cracks and hot lava bubbles up and out of me, hissing and snapping all around.

       Snap snap snipe sob.

       I am a woman who is a mother. I pick up after people. I move things from one place to the next, closing doors and opening drawers, folding and cajoling, talking down and lifting up.

       I could drink a case of them, my children. Like Joni said. I drink them up and they weigh me down with hot, sticky devotion.

       I am a woman. Hear me snore. I fall exhausted into the night and dream of naked flesh and crowded rooms and faces in mine laughing kissing pink tongues probing.  

       I am weighed down with needs that are not my own. Under the smothering of these needs, thoughts and feelings gather, waiting to be aired and felt.    

       I love to box. I jump around on my toes thinking I’m Kellie Harrington. My fingers tremble for hours afterwards.

       Tick tock tick tock. I must get everything done before the next everything comes.

       I am a woman and I can do pain. There is thunder and lightning flashing and rumbling under my expensive foundation.

       I paint my face every day before I leave the house. The hours of painting my face, if you add them up, would amount to whole weeks.

       I love my sons but sometimes I want to scream louder than them, right in their faces.

       I would like to be able to scream more. We should all be able to scream more.

       I am a woman that loves men but hates the patriarchy.

       I am a woman on silent missions. Open my head and they’re in there, piling up like lego bricks. You could build a house with my silent missions.    

       I am a woman with a body that opens and closes and rages and bleeds violent blood. Blood that would make a hero of a man, but not us. Never us.

       I am a woman. I can grow people inside me. My body makes veins and hair and scrotums and skulls.

       Sometimes I look in the mirror and remember myself. My tired eyes, the tender skin underneath them smudged with mascara. My sanitary towel, heavy with blood. My shins, dotted with stubble. I am this woman.

       Which woman are you?

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