Closets pretending to be for coats
I. the 16 year-old
She has learned how to locate her cervix, while lying naked
in water as hot as she can bear, door firmly locked on a night
when her mother is not home; she has cut her hands unbending
heavy wire, making it as straight as possible, and someone told
her hot water will make you feel it less; she has read of
perforation and thus carefully determined the placement of her
uterus, how far it extends, she is not exactly sure how the wire
is supposed to work, so she moves as deliberately as she can,
systematically, reasoning that if she hits every surface, it will do the
job. She feels her way, blindly, threading untwisted wire through
the tiny opening she holds in place with fingers that have never
explored this deeply before. There is some sort of discharge
the third time, third day… she is hopeful; but neither blood nor
release comes; only increasing nausea and moodiness
and we are told, she says later, that the enthralling tale of what men
talk about endlessly in bars, is far more important than the
stories of women and girls lying in the world’s beds and bathtubs
trying to undo damage, mistakes, regrets, shame, terror… all of which
she still rolls between thumb and forefinger, even today, as a woman
of some accomplishment she cannot meet eyes during interview, feeling
such the fraud, stained, she has worked half a lifetime trying to make it
right with God
and she wants to be a doctor when she grows up, but is confused- how
can this decision ever let her sanctify life? She would erase it all like
she erases unwieldy shadows on her sketches, but where does one begin
holding the pencil? He only outweighed her by 120 pounds; she should
have known better than to accept dinner, she had a boyfriend (the one
who handed her wire from the closet, when she confided, saying,
“It’s your problem, deal with it, slut) what was she thinking? Could she
walk backwards, unstep from that trip, suggest something else to do?
In pride she buries these things, 12 feet under; she is stripped of thought,
of “no,” of even the true pleasure of “yes,” each passing year marks another
foot closer to unearthing, but in panic she has learned to use raw ammonia
as backup contraceptive, because what she saw in those bright lights at
a women’s center will never erase the stains, and what kind of patient
will ever want a shameful hussy as their doctor anyway? She has heard
that extreme pH will prevent future walks down hallways dark enough
to be endlessly lost in. This wardrobe does not lead to Narnia, three days
later she too rises from the dead, steps forward, pretending nothing
ever happened, but the smell of ammonia will always make her urethra
burn with sympathy.
II. The 22 year-old
She is working sub-minimum wage to save money for her last semester
when she realizes she is starting a trimester, with the dawning horror
that her man will never have less than 3 more on the side, and wants her
to unburden herself of useless aspirations; and she feels motherhood now
coiling itself like Eliot’s fog as strangling cords around her throat, she
wakes and feels bruises; there is no money saved for doctors, she has to
save for relief, and go to another state; this one has started mandatory
wait periods designed to shame poor women; she is tiny and hurting, and
she goes to the only place she can afford, and when she is dilated without
anesthesia her body descends into shock, and is told by the male doctor,
“at least you are not carrying anymore,” and she learns that she is allergic
to doxycycline when she vomits all over the car on the ride home, and he
makes her clean the car as punishment. And she works the next day,
collapsing from blood loss, but hey, never let them see you sweat, or cry
or scream… and when she breaks her heart against a tree, breaking an
already broken wooden crate into the splinters her more than broken soul
knows- she is seen, brought in for questioning, real police interrogation.
Instability, madness. Female weakness is the determination. Keep her
under watch, but probably not a real threat.
she shakes and is released, blacklisted for work; she goes into hiding for
2 years because living on streets and in the grace of friends’ charity is
far better than abasement. and she says, later, there is more than one
form of slavery in this world, and she works harder than any two men
in her circle to work her way back up from bedrock; she runs and runs
without ever knowing exactly how far, how fast, how long, how high,
will ever be good enough. It is years before she fills closets with clothes
that show women’s legs and curves, before she lets someone caress her
spirit; she is terrified of ever caring; she makes a promise to the world
to care for all lost things and lost ones, as compensation for her unspoken
debts to life. And she walks unfettered of this particular slavery, to pick
up another form.
III. The 35 year-old
She is emotionally and wearily ambivalent; scared of her partner in ways
she cannot quite identify, holding medical results in her hands, serious
conditions, requiring x-rays and intense treatment; she is told, you cannot
get the treatment here, your insurance will not cover, and by the way if
you do not get treatment, you will lose your place in the program… and we
will not do treatment if you are pregnant. She is completely dependent, she
has nowhere to turn; she is unsure how she feels anyway when her lover
already has more than he can care for; she walks fences in her dreams, where
she holds children she has not necessarily given birth to; she feels lumps on
her cervix and knows what that probably means too and there is no money
for doctors; she knows she will choose one future or another with her decision
and she walks past the assholes praying at her with head held high, and
there is regret, but it is the lesser of regrets. She comes home in a blizzard
and crawls through 3 feet of snow and spends days alone at home, relieved
and unsure if she wants or will ever get another chance; her body is telling her
just how much is wrong: lungs, heart, mind, womb, breast…
and she would say, there are some roads a woman will walk forever, and
that is ok, too, because there are some destinations we will always need
to be free to choose, and she knows she will feel torn every single time
a friend proudly poses with a newborn on Facebook, just as she will always
cringe inside every time someone else gets married after she and her man
inevitably split ways, having realized completely incompatible life visions
that probably started in the womb if one looks honestly.
and she thinks, how is it that birth control that worked for 7 years, failed
now, at the only moment I could not have endured it? And she knows how
to touch inside to check on things, and she knows her female body and its
G, U, and A spots; she wishes to find a lover who will learn them too AND
learn to care for her heart in the process; she knows how to thread a
catheter through her cervix too to try to do things by herself, because she
shares something in common with girls who learn vague lessons of coat
hangers at 16, something about the shame of registries and judgment and
the dignity of privacy, and she knows that one day she will have more to
give a child, whether or not she gives birth; and she also knows that at 3 am
that day will feel like an eternity away in her waiting, and she would say,
we have come so far, but some closets will never in our lifetime be safe
for coming out of, which is a damned shame because closets really should
be for collecting and hanging clothes that make you feel proud to be a woman…
and coat hangers should only ever be seen as tools to hang things other than
your own soul.
By Marie Anzelone
Biography:
Marie Anzalone currently splits her time between residences in New England and upstate NY in the United States and Guatemala in Central America. Originally from Appalachian Pennsylvania, she spent her early years studying ecology and nature first-hand in the woods around her home. She is an artist, scientist, writer, economics master’s degree candidate, avid outdoorswoman and start-up director of an international development non-profit organization. She has been published in human rights journals, scientific journals, and poetry anthologies. She writes fiction and non-fiction in both English and Spanish. She attempts in her writing to bridge the gap between real world influence and the individual’s inner journey to find spirit and meaning. Anzalone released two collections of poetry in 2014. Her debut collection is called A Pilgrimage in Epistles:: Poems as Letters and Observations. Her sophomore offering is titled Peregrinating North-South Compass Points: Poems in English and Spanish.