marianne by Suzanne John (New York, 22)

Trigger Warning: references to female infanticide and mentions of suicide 

the pain scale according to my grandmother:
          1. “the dull ache in my stomach as i watch my father leave to fish. it is as harsh as the glitter of the sun             on the water that i sometimes dreamed of making my jewelry. perhaps i’d wear it to church.
          my father takes the sea for granted.
          2. my sister pulling on my arms and telling me to go back to bed. she doesn’t want me to take the boat           out at night.
          3. water in the nose. i cough and sputter and it is a glorious and horrible sting.
          4. burning myself on chai. my mother is teaching me how to be a housewife. i laugh through the bright           pain and put the hurt finger under the tap and learn a valuable lesson: water heals.

          5. the look in my father’s eyes as he tells me that i am marrying the older boy across the street. when i             am silent, he offers me a sweet as some sort of peace offering.
          6. the weight of my wedding earrings. the weight of it all. i walk by the sea to the church, listening to               the tide. the water pities me.
          7. childbirth.
          8. the rage in my son’s eyes as he shouts at his father. he doesn’t let my husband see him break, but                  bows his head to me instead. he cries as if he has gone a long way but there is so much longer to go.
          9. being unable to recognize the body of my son after the water has its way with him. my husband                   mutters something about the selfish and murdering sea, but i can only blankly recall running down to               the shore eighteen years prior to tell that same sea i was having a baby.
          10. the sharp fingers of the night. i did not know that the shadows were colder in america. and while i               turn fitfully here, my son sleeps far away under familiar stars. i see water and angels and whispering                oblivion, so i reach across the divide of water; i reach across mountains and country for my child, my              beautiful child. sometimes my bed feels more like a casket. i clutch desperately at my son’s hands but              they melt away like smoke, as cold as the ice of the tap water into the trembling glass. it beats that                    ancient, despairing rhythm; the one that makes me feel as if i am going mad: water heals. water                        heals.”


Suzanne John is studying psychology in western New York. When she's avoiding her homework or taking a break from writing, she's traveling the country with her dance team and dreaming about going even farther.