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The Waynesboro Middle School Library had exactly three copies of Judy Blume’s 1970
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. I don’t remember who read it first, but in all honesty, it was probably me. (I had the sort of friends that you talked to by the lockers, not the sort of friends who were actually nice to you, so I read a lot of books to make up for it. It mostly did.) Regardless of who read it first, though, all of the sixth-grade girls read it one after the other, at varying speeds. Even at twelve, we’d already been ingrained – somehow, by someone – that our changing bodies were things to be ashamed of, to talk about in whispers. Boys didn’t need to know that we bled or that the straps of our new training bras cut our skinny shoulders. But we knew. And Judy Blume, apparently, knew. “I finished it,” Therese announced to me when I walked into Mrs. Atwood’s homeroom science class. She held up the battered library copy of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. I held myself back from saying finally; Therese was a slow reader. “I love Margaret,” I said. “She reminds me of me.” Therese laughed and rolled her eyes. She was allowed to wear mascara already, and her eye-rolling always seemed so much more cutting because of those dark lashes. “You’re not Margaret. You’re Laura Danker.” It did not occur to me to be offended because now that she mentioned it, it was probably true. Laura Danker developed more quickly than all the other girls, and she sat in the front row of all of her classes, and no one wanted to be her friend because of some combination of those two things. Say cheese. Let the seven heavens come to your
aid. Touch the sun and kiss the colour of the moon. Open your window and let it be day. Look for a linen and a scarlet, stitched by pretty palms of a calm tailor who shelters his heart like a dove. Snatch the frag-- rance of the sun. Invite the odour of the rain. Lay it upon your bed. I will be there when the day ages. I will be there at dawn, before the sky defines itself. You are fine. Don’t whine.
Just don’t come wagging your depressed tongue in my face: You’re not a lost case; You’re just fine— The everyday kind Of person that we all are. Don’t come shoving your jar Of jargons of mental illness. Shut up! Drain out the funky pills from your cup. You’re just fine. Trust me, your cliched lines Of pretentious anxiety and disorders and medical terms-- They don’t fit into my vernacular, and I confirm That you are thriving just as well. Put aside the tall tales Of cringe-worthy openness about your situation-- Now that’s the word you use too often! The new pair of panties is covered in a thick red liquid. The sound of flushing is loud, and the
chatter of girls dissipates to nothing. Her bag is empty, gone, of all its contents. Toilet paper is thin and barely does the job, soaking up the red liquid like a desperate sponge in water. Toilet paper dries her up and scratches her legs. She looks at the metal bin and its gaping mouth and its sharp teeth. It taunts her with bolded black numbers 25¢. Her fists punch against the metal bin. Her hand is covered in red liquid. The metal bin clatters to the floor with a clang and white packets litter the floor. The greedy girl picks up the packets and stuffs them in her bag, leaving some for the next victim of thick red liquid. It is the look in another woman’s eyes
when you tell her that it has finally happened to you. The story we’ve heard countless times, of the monsters with angel faces, of the night we all dread. It is an unspoken conversation; she won’t interrupt you, but you know she understands. Because you look into her eyes, and see that she has the same story to tell. Matti lives in Eugene, Oregon, and when she is not writing poetry you can find her wandering aimlessly outside with her Bernese mountain dog. She is working on her debut chapbook, which she hopes to publish soon, and her work appears or is forthcoming in The Raven Review and Stone Pacific Zine. Her ribs poke through her shirt,
all she can fit is size extra-small. She gets worried looks as she walks down the street and feels a sense of triumph. Another, wears testaments of her own self-hatred across her wrists. Wearing it like a badge of honor. Each struggle to showcase the highest degree of self-loathing, She made it look so easy She made it look so easy
to leave without turning back to say goodbye and cut the ties though it's harder than it seems five loose threads all spread if you love something let it go . across the living room floor but we had barely any time . as they cried, little hands stretched to grow before we were out for one last hold only to be told tossed aside out of sight and “Be mommy’s strong girl” while out of mind. their entire world crumbled. Mel Eaton is a non-binary student at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. They are majoring in creative writing and film study. They have previously been published in, Eloquence: 2015 Poetry Collection, Anvil and Lyre 2020, Oneiroi 2022, Windfall 2022 and Windfall 2023. Mel has worked alongside Green Hills Literary Lantern as a general editor and plans to go to Denver Publishing Institute to further their education in publishing and editing for small literary journals. I am made of intersections
where each light just changed to yellow, which is to say: I must make choices; which is to say: stop or go; which is to say: fight or flight because freeze is not an option. But sometimes the choice is already made, which is to say: I’m second-born; which is to say: I’m the second first-born; which is to say: I’m the second mother; which is to say: I’m never far from home, I hope you heal.
I don’t know why things happen. I’ve never figured it out. I’ve tried to inform myself, do the research, write the essays and you still find me at a loss. And I know I don’t know you. I know you don’t know me. But something connects us all, and in that I feel you. I feel the time he mistreated you, and called you crazy. Maybe you felt it worse than you should have, because you felt my experience too. I’m sorry. And I love the way that sounds. We throw the word ‘bitch’ around in a way we shouldn’t. I’m always directing her back to the shit, the cheese, the rubbish, to avoid my looming apology sticking out like darts in my face. The opposite of acupuncture. I know it wants attention and I know it hurts but Taylor, this shit, this cheese, this rubbish, it’s all so important is it not? So pressing, so urgent, so ‘like the other girls’.
Oh I can’t look at her. I fawn over pictures of her cats and ask after her family and lean in on dramatic cues but I know she’s bouncing her leg and talking in time with the clock. She knows and I know, but good apologies take time, do they not? If I take another sip of my tea my mouth will be full and I can’t help that. And if I finish a fifth biscuit then I’ll need more tea to wash it out of my teeth and my mouth will be full again. My mug keeps refilling even though I need a wee and I know what I’m here to say. |