Teenagers in Texas can no longer get birth control on their own. The logic of this escapes me just as it did when I was a teenager and my step-father stole my birth control pills out of my purse. He did not want the shame of a pregnant teenage daughter, that’s certain, so what was the point?
Sex. My step-father did not want me to have sex so he stole my pills. Not logical, but there it is. Why didn’t he want me to have sex? Why is it a crime?
Sex. The only way to slip the human noose and play at the level of angels, the only way to fly without wings, swim without fins, run as if eternally young, dance all night without tiring, fall with the stars, fill with the moon, look the sun in the eye, die a million times without fear, be born a million times without pain, hold a soul in your arms, kiss eternity on the lips, fall in love with God.
Cave paintings show lions mating
millennia
before the first zoo
Photo by Isac Ciobota on Unsplash
Katherine West
Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, Writers Resist, Feminine Collective and Southwest Word Fiesta. New Verse News nominated her poem And Then the Sky for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico, the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado, and the Tombaugh Gallery in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She is also an artist.
