Hi Gorgina Readers,
Happy Wednesday, I hope this finds you well. Okay, I must share this secret: I used to think that phrase meant “I hope this message does a good job at finding you,” like a pigeon with a telegram. Tragic.
Yesterday I found myself on a well-intentioned but misaligned walk in a city that holds very little space for pedestrians. I was in some pain, and I stopped in front of a Starbucks on a ridiculously busy street. I felt hot (temperature) and strange (derogatory). I had to park it to get these words out (ass, not car), so I threw up in the notes app. Thanks for being here.
I am climbing up a hill
In brick shoes
Fashion hooves
They saw no walking in their future
I imagine they're confused
But I'm not like other girls 🤪
I'm clunking in melancholy
Paid for with Klarna
Dragging my calves, glue-like and downtrodden
They are committed to slowness today
I'm walking towards a state-named street sign
That is not the state I live in
The state I live in is ambivalence question mark
Or, a kind of blocked up lightning bolt of anger
bottled up, seeping its excess
Like a Play-do spaghetti maker
Or it's California, idk
I'm walking with tension between my legs because of evolution
But mostly because I am trying out a Girlboss menstrual tool
That allows you to fuck
Maybe this isn't very hashtag feminist of me
but I can't think of anything I want less, bleeding
Than to be more fucked
Than I already feel
So I'm clenching and creeping
Because I have some sort of broken system in which this revolutionary plastic disc
Refuses to do its job
In me
I've watched several well-meaning and nauseatingly marketed videos of people
explaining the insertion
And I watch them, legs spread on the toilet
One hand in my pussy and the other on my phone
Like an Alanis remix
As I attempt to angle Science
So I can cook an egg or go to the gym
Whatever it is I find myself doing these days
With a bloated confidence and belly
I am now walking on a busy street
Feeling the warmth and shame
Of another task that should be easy
Yet thrashes in my feeble grasp
Like a fish out of water
Will I always be a left-out child?
I remember when the kids would go to Pirandello's
A local pizza shop, for lunch
Everyone stood around parmesan dusted plaid
Like a pack of beasts in their lair
And I remember playing Double Dutch with my words
Sneaking in sentences I deemed shiny
Ones that might give me access or laughter
A seat at the table
But my sculpted sentences fell flat
An awkward chuckle in a sea of tight lipped stares hung in the air with Oregano and Garlic
I'm walking with embarrassment
On a street built for cars, not heavy bleeders
And I'm thinking about my therapist
Who explained that by being everything for everyone
I was living outside of myself
I'm still out here I think
Homemaking from lost-ness
So I walk
I walk to make space for my homecoming
So I can see through my eyes, like windows
And not as a bird looking down
Perhaps to say, "not the hooves today my love"
Perhaps to say, "the disc is a nice idea, I’m proud of you for trying"
Perhaps to say "rest" when I'm tired and "I know it hurts" when it does because I do
I know it does
I'm sitting now
I think I'll take the bus
See you next time.
xoxo,
A