(This essay was written in one sleepless night in October of 2024.
It was forgotten in the rush of life and then published on 7 November 2024.)

  1. How did I come to write this essay?
    Well, it strikes me as funny you should ask.
    You see I loved writing essays in college.
    I’m always looking for an excuse to write an essay.
    As an English major, that guaranteed me at least two essays per class.
    Anytime an essay was assigned, my classmates
    would get highly agitated,
    like they had suddenly descended into one of Dante’s rings of hell.
    (I haven’t read Dante, so I couldn’t write an essay about it.)
    But I was like, “Alright! This is gonna be fun, guys! An essay!”
    (I knew better than to say that out loud.)
    But I would be thinking it to myself,
    “Tonight we’re gonna stay in and create an outline!”
    Bring it on! In fact…
    let’s do one right now. Throw me a topic.
    Anything. Come on.
    ‘A certain political party is working to make access to college,
    among other things, unattainable for women.’
    Easy. Here we go.

    1. Remove access to contraception.
    2. Eliminate any hope of financial independence.
      1. Require women to have their fathers or husbands co-sign for all college credit and student loans.
        1. I asked both my father and husband if they would co-sign for me to go to college in an anti-misogynist apocalypse.
          1. My father did co-sign on my first credit card back in 1991.
            1. He also, with my mother, insisted I go to college
              so I would be able to support myself as an independent person.
              I was actually not agreeable to that at the time.
            2. My father and husband both said yes, that they could co-sign for me during a misogynist apocalypse.
            3. I believe one of them.
        2. Remove job hiring protections for women and minorities
          in order to force them back into low-paying, service jobs.
      2. Only allow men on the admission boards of colleges and universities.
      3. Make it illegal for women to write essays.

     

     

  2. You once said the love of your life was probably America.
    I would argue that’s a dysfunctional relationship
    and you should transfer your affections to a ship that’s not sinking.
    I’m not suggesting that would be me.
    I’m likely just another unhealthy manifestation of my country.

    3.  

     

  3. When contacted for this essay’s conclusion I said,
    “You know those horror movies with the soul suckers?
    I can feel that right now in my chest.
     

    I’m so sorry; I need to stop for a minute.
    I think I just made a self-harming joke.”

 

 

Notes:
All of my free and online poems will come down by the end of the year.
If there’s anything you want to save, you should save it.