I crave retreat. Water hush and bones and branches. Red dirt and nothingness. The quiet stun of the star sky. I need to be away from this woman-hating world. A place where sexual and family violence is becoming more of a topic and an issue and a slogan, and yet my heart sighs at the enormity of tackling the embedded hatred towards women and girls: sex trafficking and rape and shame and all of the cultural variations of victim blaming, woman blaming, judgement, body hatred, body harming, assault, leering, comments, looks, the looks I get walking, or sitting having a burger and existing in my body.
A cave and a spring. Female baptism. The backing track of leaves only, and the wind. Washing out the micro aggressions. A break from the pressure to somehow find a way to respond to hateful comments, the words, the slut and ho and fat and ugly.
Sometimes I can be creative in my response. Sometimes I just move me and my goddamn shopping trolley to another side of the burger place so these fucking idiot men won’t stare at me. Sometimes I share feminist articles on Facebook.
But, I crave the creek and the gum and the place where my body can be on it’s own. Where I can look at my baby daughter and be free of those flashes of abusive futures.
Current and river bed and sleep. To be cherished, and sleep.
