emotional health – Page 9 – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

Moving on

July 17, 2019July 17, 2019 Paakhi Bhatnagar

You are so much more than the scars on your wrists Or the ones on your back that no one sees, not even you You are a flower and you have been watered down And you have been stepped on The sun has barely kissed your skin And your tan Read more

A Storm in Milton, Georgia

June 18, 2019June 19, 2019 Elizabeth Markley

Emma had been kicked out of her house. This was a first, for Emma or for her siblings, and it really did not strike her as fair. She had not actually done anything, as in, performed an action or committed a crime. All she did was remind her mother of Read more

Message For My Daughter

June 17, 2019June 17, 2019 Patricia Thrushart

I will not be there when you are the age I am now— this we must face. I waited to have you for reasons that are old rags of memory from clothes I wore before you. In today’s mirror I see you, orphaned, in your diaphanous future— thin skin, fragile Read more

I PASSED OUT

June 13, 2019July 6, 2019 Billie T. Stark

Queen Violet? Dream flowing like blood from your wound? They put you away, huh Darling? You wear a hospital gown and stand on a rock. Natives surround you, raw sex in costumes strange to us. I want to stand beside you on the rock to take your place but I’m Read more

Lessons

June 10, 2019June 10, 2019 Melanie Jones

In the beginning, you will feel like you’ve landed in a world completely different to anything you have ever known or imagined, almost as though a tornado struck and whisked you off to another land. As you begin this journey you will feel like a modern-day princess. You will be Read more

MY MOTHER’S SCARVES

May 3, 2019June 13, 2019 Anne Leigh Parrish

Blue paisley when she feels humble Green polka dots when the beauty parlor is closed Stars and stripes for the Fourth Red and green for Yuletide Magenta for seducing the department chair Navy blue for telling my father it never happened Pink and yellow for the parent-teacher conference Beige to Read more

It’s All My Fault

March 6, 2019August 13, 2021 Judith Staff

They say “the body remembers.” Somewhere in my mind, the intrusive sound of the soles of men’s sensible shoes slapping onto the shiny floors throughout the corridors still haunts me now and then. Sitting on a shelf labeled “incongruity,” the sudden thunder of racing footsteps filling the hushed, echoey hallways Read more

Last Act of Love

February 21, 2019May 29, 2019 Mary Stocker Frumkin

I knew the problem was serious when Greg could not muster the energy to get himself to the ice cream shop at the end of the street. This daily expedition had become his afternoon treat to cool off from the summer heat. We were in Australia to spend Christmas with Read more