Sublime

In our society, women have lived, and have been despised for living, the whole side of life that includes and takes responsibility for helplessness, weakness, and illness, for the irrational and the irreparable, for all that is obscure, passive, uncontrolled, animal, unclean—the valley of the shadow, the deep, the depths of life.

The world carried women down this river so swiftly once they acknowledged they might even consider the choice. ‘Maybe’ became 2.5 in a flash. Plans to ‘go back part-time’ evaporated into fetid air. The only way to stop the slide was a firm ‘no’. Her birthday in a week. Thirty-four. Her mother and Gen were the only ones who knew. What good were birt

He was formed in uncertainty. Uncertain of food, of place, of worth. It does not matter that he is safe now and has enough. The memory followed him. Some remnant of it clings to him even now.