#seahorse nomadicpress

[natashadennerstein]

Female Pronouns, Please.          Natasha Dennerstein

You limp your way to womanhood, trying on images and stereotypes like garments—shedding blood-stained ribbon

gauze and sequins—earning the hard way the right to call yourselves woman, utilizing synthesized hormones

(pregnant mare’s urine) to slough off your skins of acquired masculinity to reveal the underlying

female, to shed, to shed to be the woman within, to earn the title woman, to be she, to be she, to be she.