It is 1973, the U.S. Supreme court ruled in favor
of a woman's right to choose.

It is 2000 and my mother chooses me.
I am born with ten fingers and ten toes
and though I remember nothing,
she remembers it all.

It is 2001 and terrorism reeks havoc and death
on the United States
and Americans are reinvigorated
with a new kind of hatred for foreigners and immigrants.

It is 2009 and my parents divorce
and I meet a man
that makes me afraid to live in my own home.
Because he lives there as well.
And though, he never touches me
he talks to me
like I am nothing
and he is the sun
and there a hiccups of time
when I believe him.

Things I was not supposed to worry about.

It is 2014 and I read about Roe v. Wade for the first time
in my 9th grade history textbook,
I thought that my generation
would not have to worry about these things.
That some other brave women had paved the way
toward my right to choose what happened to my body.
Funny
how some of my other peers never had to come to that revelation.
Funny
how we learn in silence.

It is 2015.
I work in a bar, behind the scenes
flipping burgers and cleaning toilets
but everyone still knows my name
and some people still throw their arms around me
and hold on too tight
and touch me in sly inappropriate glimpses

It is 2015,
and I have learned to grin and bear it
and never say a word.
Because there are things a woman puts up with
for the sake of a job.

It is 2015 and in my personal finance class
a teacher projects a chart of a wage gap,
chalks up the hundreds of thousands of dollars
in differential pay
to maternal leave.
And I wonder if he ever smiled through a man
more than three times his age,
with a hand on his ***
without saying a thing.

these are things we were not supposed to worry about

It is 2018 and my mother asks me how I sleep at night
knowing I litter my facebook timeline with
pro-choice propaganda.
How I could think that I might know anything about my own body
and life and needs
because I haven't had children.
Because my thoughts, desires, obligations, and dreams,
my validity as a **** human being
and as a woman
means nothing without bearing a child.

It is 2018 and I have been using a birth control pill
for three months
I put on ten pounds
I am emotional
I hate myself
and I cry constantly
Sometimes my stomach cramps until I throw-up,
but I know that I need to get used to birth control
that one day, and probably soon
I'll need it.

It's 2018, and I've been active for months,
I never miss a pill
I do everything right
my routine is a well-oiled machine
I use other methods as back-up even though it isn't cheap
I've been using a period tracking app for months
and it is never wrong.
But soon I'm five days late for my period
and awake till 3 am believing that my life is over
I'm supposed to go to college in a month,
I'm supposed to be responsible
How could I be so stupid?
How could I be so irresponsible?
My period is seven days late, but it comes while I'm working
and I bleed through my clothes.
I'm a bartender now, so I tie a sweatshirt around my waist
until my mother brings me what I need.
I want to cry out in relief
and I wonder why I suffered in silence,
and might have been punished alone
even though my crimes were aided and abetted.

It is 2019 and 19 states are pushing new
intrusive abortion restrictions and "heartbeat bills"
and women protest in blood red robes and white bonnets
that hide their faces and their person-hoods
that are being degraded
in favor of the person-hood of a pea.

It is 2019, and though it is not the first time,
I feel scared to be a woman.

These are the things we were not supposed to worry about.

I.

No, don't go now. Please
don't go now; the fog is creating ghosts
out of people and we're breathing clouds out of our mouths.
Tell me about that time when you held your breath
under the lake for six years and still survived;
tell me how if I do that, it'll never work.
I'm not a sea God
any more.

II.

My knees tell better stories than my tongue
ever did, please don't; wretched hive harangues
the mind in a plague, can't you see I'm holding you down
and telling you you're all I ever wanted,
you're all I ever wanted; your head is the stuff of dreams
you're all I ever wanted; you can put your arm
right through me and only feel mist;
I am fog. I'm creating ghosts out of you.

III.

Make it up to me in a rainbow of hues of grey;
at the end of it I'm holding my ribs open. I've never
been more colourful and sad at the same time.
You're the mirrors to my house; stay
has always sounded better than don't go

yet neither seems to work anymore.

I die small deaths at the hand of remembrance.
Wear me like a red poppy on your lapel;
I want you to remember me like this:

in the rain, my summer dress
sticking to my body, cutting a figure
you've never seen: sadness.
She looks like sadness, she looks
like a tired box of bones with her arms
outstretched
calling out for love.
My eyes running with the water,
and repeating your name like some
******* prayer
and your arms like anchors and holding.
Nobody is ever going to love you like I do,
I said and you listened.
You listened then,
in the broken opus of rain hitting tin roofs,
and the ground melting at the touch of something
so pure.
But what of it, anyway.

You're going to need a bigger bunch
of flowers than this to make it right
this time.

You fall out of love like a habit.
Nobody told you that even when they say
'there are no wrong answers',
there's always one that rings all the wrong bells.
You say, 'Maybe strawberry ice cream is my favourite',
and suddenly alarms go off in his head
'How? What? Nobody likes strawberry icecream!
This one is defective! Return to Sender!'

This one is defective.
You were mass produced
on a supply line for antsy, lonely nineteen-year olds.
This was their best year yet; the whole world is aching
but we're sorry to inform you but
Models made after 1995 are no longer supported.

To the scrapyard, then.
You fall and tumble and crawl out of love
like it's out to get you.
Like it's got its teeth in you,
nails tearing into flesh,
holding your ankles and begging you
to stay.

I.
You walk through these streets
like you think you know what you want.
But tell me honestly,
inside the pockets of your coat
your fingers never uncross,
do they?

II.
I drown you in photographic film
and sometimes I wonder how time
stands still in a painting.
In the middle of the bazaar, you stood
like a painting
while people moved around you
like an overexposed reel of film
and time still stands still to this day

III.
You're coughing it all out; winter
on your lips and spring in your lungs.
Drink me.
I am a tincture of a daydream.
The sun is always brighter, my dear.

IV.
Our hands interlace in the darkness
and melt away with the consequences of time.
You are a bottle of something precious.
Put me to sleep, sing
me to sleep.

V.
Undo the buttons of your dress
and wear away with the night.
Shed this old layer of skin
and something about rebirth
we can tell beautiful lies
but how long before the bread soaks up the milk
and the blood on the carpet
seeps into
the wood.

VI.
The ice on the lake
can't hold up this dream anymore.
You're a hallucination
and all I needed.

You wanted a love like in the movies;
rain drenched white shirts, palms covered
in daisy pollen; I love you more than--
a phone call, long distance, your fingers
curling the telephone wire like you're pulling me
towards you
like a fibre optic pheromone.
Soundtracks of a jazz piano, and old jukebox hits,
flared skirts and Mary Jane shoes, square dancing.

But most of the time, we don't get to choose
the colour of the bedsheets. In this story,
I know you're going to leave me. I can sense
the zoom of your eyes, rolling away from me.
The lighting in the room, like the ones where something
awful is about to happen: a sad, sick orange
like a cheap sunset; the music, or lack thereof,
the way you bite your lip like you're about to
break my heart.

You look to the ground, and I know this is where
the narration will start;

this is the story of the first time
someone broke my heart.  
She's going to look up at me
and say the words,
It's all over-

and in a jump frame
the thunderclap will mask the sound
of my heart shattering, the sob disappearing
into my throat.

You wanted a love like in the movies,
honey,
we all did.

But then the rain came, and the flowers
drowned in their beds.
You left your umbrella by the doorstep,
I hope you don't catch a cold.

how many men
do i have to fill myself up with
before i am able
to get the feeling of you
out of my chest