womanhood
womanhood did not sneak up on me
when my thighs were stained with first blood
that arrived
so unexpected
so connecting
it didn’t happen when hormones sprouted lumps and bumps
that others
stared at
and touched
it was not given to me
nor did I grab it
in the first instance
of fucking
or when lovers loved me
or advantages were taken
or if I shaved
or didn’t
… spoke softly
… drank wine
… eased someone’s pain.
I felt
it
swelling,
a fierce instinctive roar
woven through rivers that
cut their way
through the innards of the earth,
a carved path hewn
for us
and I
took it
declared it mine
claimed it –
this new world
I was so certain
wouldn’t swallow me up.
under the covers
I know where the monsters in this house dwell
and they’re not under the beds
but rather,
in them.
I see them at night’s dawn
with crooked soul
and vile perversions.
as they creep past the creaks in the floor
and into my bed.
Previously published in inkspace magazine, Editor Katherine Hopkins. No longer in print
night eyes trust your night eyes, child. there will be no comfort here no fires around which to gather and dance. we are alone. healing cuts and we lavish crimson blood on fresh snow. our tread falls softer, and we fold our bodies down to bow and kiss the earth with the strange tongues of our mothers, wyched words from her womb only our bellies understand. as I wake, I know I am alone. I look up to see the stars have moved and spun the heavens on their backs. winter has killed the leaves and the trees have drawn their spirits in to nest inside their core, leaving the heavens untouched the moonlight stark and uncompromising. the winter hag has stripped me and now I stare back at my own reflection that hangs from every tree, until she rasps that she is done with me, that I have cut away the rags of comfort and my outline. my core is clear, raw. I see those long fingers of the earth stretched toward the stars and head for home, whole, unshadowed, awake in the cold, and terribly, nakedly aware and unafraid of who I am.
(Adapted version first published in She Who Knows magazine, now called Aeva. Editor, Isabella Lazlo)
Amara George Parker is a London-based writer, with work published in literary magazines Spoon Knife, Sufi Journal, i n k s p a c e, Aeva, Voice of Eve, She Who Knows, and Earth Pathways diary. As a queer disabled writer, she hopes her work offers readers an inclusive perspective.
Amara’s website is here.
Chris Murray 