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Women's

Recollections of Girlhood

Words by Hannah Scott

Art by Postmodern Puke

 

An ode to Fleabag.

Men create Gods and unholy things to submit to. They forge wars and chaos to relinquish themselves in blood and gore. I was born with it running on a cycle inside me. They create covenants and commandments to feel guilty. And when they are not trying to kill each other, they toss one another in sweat and mud and call it sport so that they can touch each other. Men crave it. The blood. Pain. Horror. Pleasure. In my frail subtle feminine bones, I contain all of this and more. It was my birthright. It is all I am entitled to. We are not born equal. 

 

The Aftermath.

 I hate my beautiful words. Do I need to make my abuse more palatable for you? More romantic? I will not glorify it. It was not beautiful when he laid me out. It was not romantic when he kissed me. He kissed me only to consume me. To claim me. To brand me. They say femininity is gentle. The feminine scabbard for your masculine blade. Your weapon to rest in my passive heart. But they are wrong. I have the feminine urge to ruin you. My femininity is a flood. Life bearing water and blood. With precise pressure my feminine flood has the power to cut through your masculine steel. Why is yours considered a weapon to wield when mine is unafraid of gore? My femininity has power over life and death. Pleasure and pain. Your masculine urges are self righteous. Entitled and arrogant. They are clumsy and catastrophic. My feminine flood is deliberate like the soft caress that manifests the fall of dominos. Dynasties. A flood fed by years of rain. Now the dam wall breaks and my femininity is not gentle. My words are not pretty. I have the feminine urge to ruin you. 

 

Sonnet for self. 

These lines are dedicated to the May girl. Spring of youth and autumnal love. You, who danced in castles of leaves swept from their branches by a cinnamon breeze.

You, who collects salty tears like antique pearls and trinkets savouring fleeting moments of passion. 

O killer of friends and betrayer of home! Sing out to the void and wait for an echo. A sign of life. But the only returning call is your reflection. You are the only living thing left here.

You proclaim yourself a diplomat so you have something to defend.

You, who chased the tails of lonely boys who demand you call them men. 

O soft shell and blistered heart. They do not want your body but your shadow. Its mystique and its curves, blurred at the edges, are far more beautiful, more seductive than scarred flesh. 

You, who walked with the dead. Dear May girl, your autumnal love dies with the trees.  

 

I said my femininity was like a flood once. A force of nature. Water alone is gentle. Water can bathe and heal you. Life bringer. Water alone is beautiful. A stream. A brook. A beach. But under pressure and force it becomes lethal. Swallow me and I will hydrate you. Or I will drown you. Today my femininity is like fire. A burning bush. A forest flame. A pit in the deepest of my shame and regret of flaming hot fury. I will burn you from the inside out. And when you beg for water, a drop of relief for your crippled body, I will come in with such force my flood will drown you. I will ruin you. Through flame and flood.

Hannah Scott

The author Hannah Scott

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