May brought lots of amazing work from Women Who Submit. Congratulations to all!
From Tammy Delatorre‘s “Ticking of the Clock” at The Nervous Breakdown:
My aunt died in a car accident when I was six. We buried her, a fetus in her belly. She was only 26.
I try not to hear my own biological clock ticking.
From “Famous Negro Rapper #15″ by Ashunda Norris at Drunk in a Midnight Choir:
Kanye dyed his eyes blue & now i am uncertain
as to whether he hates him or if he is screaming
From Anna Graham Hunter‘s “How #MeToo Accusers Cope After Going Public: ‘My Hatred Has Deepened’” at The Hollywood Reporter:
Life has become more complicated since I came forward, and dating is the least of it. Six months later, I’ve been feeling kind of shitty about the whole thing — in some ways I feel worse now than I did before I went public — and it’s been hard to figure out why. Why have I been so angry? Why do I suddenly burst into tears for no obvious reason? Shouldn’t I be feeling better now that my story is out there? I wondered if I was the only one who felt this way, or if other women who accused powerful men have had similar experiences. I decided to find out by talking to as many of them as I could.
From “Un-enlisted” by Carla Sameth at Collateral:
Loneliness is dropping your wife at the Coast Guard base realizing you
are alone for the day and you fought your last 24 hours except
those last six hours bodies puzzle pieced together, deep sleep, soft blue flannel sheets.
One hand holds your breast, the other your butt, her touch comforts and possesses.
Also from Carla, “Stand Up Mom” at Brain, Child:
My therapist had suggested I try comedy. “You’re funny. Go out and do something new like stand-up or improv,” she’d said from the safety of her Zen-like chair. She wanted me to pursue other interests in addition to attending Al-anon meetings and visiting my son, Raphael, at the recovery home for young men where he’d been residing for six months.
From Antonia Crane‘s “How to Strip…Sober” at The Fix:
The thing that sucks about stripping sober is having feelings. That sex workers are thought of as hardened, bitter or distant is ridiculous. Emotions are not a faucet that turns off once you take your clothes off and climb a pole. I’m often overwhelmed by the sadness and vulnerability of men I encounter. Performing the role of the sexy escape route for men to avoid the responsibilities in their lives is hard to maintain.
From “Patchwork” by Ryane Nicole Granados at Mutha Magazine:
The first time my infant son peed in my face I worried my man troubles were far from over. Then when I met the man who has become my second husband and he expressed he was a single dad raising two sons that he had while barely out of childhood himself, and that one of those son’s had just had his own son, all I could see was a house full of penises. But I fell hard and I fell fast and to my dream come true I was gifted a life with everything I ever wanted while bearing resemblance to everything I imagined I could never handle.
Also from Ryane, “Mindfulness for Busy Moms” at L.A. Parent:
Amanda Gilbert’s Saturday morning mindfulness meditation is exactly the class for overly mental-active moms like me. I slipped into the candle-lit room filled with cushions, blankets and an oversized rug. About 20 of us, a culturally diverse group of men and women from young adult to senior, settled ourselves down on the cushions. I was relieved to learn I wasn’t the only one meditating for the first time.
From “The Extraordinary Self” by Melissa Chadburn at McSweeney’s:
Henriquez is just one of many undocumented women who are coming forward and telling their stories about being sexually harassed and assaulted in the workplace. We were meeting the morning after the election because she wanted the dangers facing the women who dust the photos on our desks at work, who refill the toilet-paper rolls in our gym restrooms, who clean the floors of our hospitals, to be known and told. These dangers now seemed even greater given what Trump’s election had already unleashed in the previous few hours.
From Andrea Guevara‘s “Single Parents Can’t Survive on Unpaid Child Support” at Dame:
It was late morning. My son and daughter were at school. I just got off the phone with the Department of Child Support Services (CSS), trying to decipher anything else I could do to help them find my ex-husband.
“If we don’t find him soon, they’ll close your case,” the case worker had said, “there’s a time limit.”
Congratulations to Tanya Ko Hong who won the Yoon Dong Ju Award for her blog!
Congratulations also to Linda Ravenswood who won a fellowship at the LARB/USC publishing symposium and a spot in the Latino Theater Alliance/Los Angeles Writers’ Circle 2018-2019 cohort!