Feminine Mystique

Our cauldron: a backyard fire pit in Ohio
we circled to tell the ways men turned us
into painted vessels. Even then we knew
we had no kinship with the moon.
Is there an ethereal way to say
I’m fucking angry? I am hardened

as the rose quartz you gave me with the promise
of divine feminine energy. Sorry for laughing.
You know what would be divine? To chuck
those stones through his window, to say
It’s just a dwelling! You’re giving this
too much thought. Healing crystals, I get it now.
Earth goddess? As if we have command over currents
whose will we underestimate, the boys who told us
I can sleep on the couch if you want.

To say he pleaded like a little boy
is to suggest a sweetness. Like the nurse’s voice
when she asked me was it consensual?
She didn’t have to see the blood to know
it was a reminder—not of what my body could do,
but what it was for.

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Meagan Chandler holds a B.A. in creative writing and an MFA in poetry. Her works have been published in journals such as Inscape, The Ekphrastic Review, The Shore, Mikrokosmos, and Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose.