I am so carnal under the full moons / this is how I know I was born / to be a mother: the anger is so apparent when the weather can shoot / a small guinea thing dead / I choose perpetuity mommy, survive me, I say / don’t be the second storm is the bullet hole through her stoicism / she will not feed them I birthed the rodents / & every worm in their bodies / mother mighty / & mighty / & mightier / shock kill / such a casualty does it even count as death / I am so carnivorous today / can’t kill a killer if the killer is the self / I can blame the storms / & the moons / & the newsworthy bodies / & the unsolicited continuity of a life like mine / for why I couldn’t feed my children / this is how I know

I was born to be a mother

roads are blocked today & I cannot drive

I am too young to drink

& too old to forget how to keep an organism alive

can I forget all this & try again

because I promise I was born to be a mother

my own mother brought me to a shore

during a storm & that could’ve been an accident too

malice undeterminable

we drown the words we know how to use / we breastfeed sentences / I cry into them, they cry at me / my grief is a halo

Every Pet I Have Must Be a Boy

Caitlin Villacrusis ‘24

In “Every Pet I Have Must Be a Boy,” I, as the speaker, move through the motions of grief, both past and future. Guilt over what’s happened and fear for what’s to come are the death of a pet in my freshman year and the beliefs it’s solidified in me, regarding motherhood and the harmful cycles that blame and negligence perpetuates.

Mother - Ella Marrone ‘24

This work was inspired by motherhood and the expectations put onto women of bearing children. It’s described as pleasant and the assumed course that women should take in their adulthood, and women are viewed as something is wrong with them if not. It was inspired by a story a woman told of her experience in a hospital that charged her for skin to skin contact after her child’s birth.