One woman’s vessel is another woman’s temple (or, if you had a child to ‘complete you’, you’re dealing with the wrong end of the cow).
Having never sought fulfilment
in the pursuit of being mother my body is my temple for use of no-one other than my own indulged desires of aesthetics, pleasure, fun, so, yes, I fret the stretch marks, the odd pimple on my bum. I obsess, in terms of thread veins, for they make me feel unpretty, so vain, if that doth make me, I accept in all its gritty, ugly notions – for us gals are meant to be vessels of life-giving, all procreation’ry. “Oh! I know my body’s purpose”! the new mother’s apt to cry. I shall not regret my choices biologics tick… ticking by. Does that mean our sad mechanics are bereft of serving purpose? It is no hard done-by chore, our childlessness not cursed us. When I stand, unclothed and natural my body has a story I don’t need the marks of childbirth to feel a sense of glory. All this talk of ‘battle scars’ babies sure sound painful, but, forgive me, all you mothers should I dare to sound disdainful. It’s just I feel no less a woman for not having given birth, and there is no singular purpose for this body on this earth. Like living in a desert enduring shifting sands, the bits I’ve never really liked I cover up with clothes and hands. I’ve no need to ‘love my body’, thanks I’m just fine with friendly banter. Angles, poise and lighting three small words – a mighty mantra. Self-love is overrated when costume is the thing, and my body wears it well, you see, and the pleasure that it brings is proof enough that any scars may be healed to nothing without the need for motherhood and its pushy, panting, puffing. So curse my sour dismissives! I’m all said and done, the female form has every purpose babies ain’t the only one. |
SwallowedEat the flames within me
spit and hear the hiss of passion’s trials thus prescribed, drop jewels in every kiss. Take my flesh unrendered strip me to the bone devour every shred of me brand me as your own. My mouth shall make the shape of you, when our chemicals compound to create exotic fusion in you I will be drowned. It's not that I "hate" children, but...But, when I was child, my Grandmother tells me I used to smack photographs of children and babies in magazines and books and shout "NO"!
As I've always known I prefer peas to carrots, wine that doesn't come in a box and men who treat tweed as a religious experience, I've always similarly just known I never wanted children. With alarming regularity (which appears to have increased as I hurtled towards the big four-oh) younger women tilt their heads to one side and say, with a mix of pity and confusion: "How did you know"? As if they wish to remind me that if I change my mind at this late stage, I'd better get working at getting pregnant, like, NOW. Maybe it's like being gay, or feeling as though you were born a hundred years too late, y'know, when the world moves too fast and you're screaming a silent, internal yowl for a crofters cottage to call your own on some remote Hebridean island where only the sheep can hear you muttering. I quite like some children. The ones with parents smart enough to realise that if they eschew discipline in favour of letting the kid run amok like a mini-despot in terry towelling, then they're going to end up a) friendless, and b) loathed by their own offspring in equal measure. Kids like discipline. I did. I liked having a measure of what to kick back against, what to blatantly flaunt in my parents faces, a threshold of tolerance by which I discovered my place in the world.... and a reason to seek ever-sneakier means of breaking the rules. The boy blueThat boy…. that boy….
Flashing sapphires burn bluer in a sunloved labourer’s face than anything Ceylon conceived. That boy.… that boy…. Pebbled in sweat breaking up concrete and my heart. That boy, in dusty faded denim A smooth-seamed teenage dream, skin riding up on lean muscle over ribs like Christ’s. A native rock, formed hard into regret, he swims in a pool of glittering, sun-shot memory. Rising, dripping and sleek-headed decorated with a vintage smile. And I eat my already smashed-up heart out Every. Single. Time. |