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Jenn Miller |
| She is there, a stark-white mountainous region, curving up and gently sloping down, a throng of valleys and peaks, each particular, each beautiful, each unique. She forms a wall of shelter, nurturing those within in her reach, complete and connected, meeting with tender kisses on every side. She is opinionated and firm, refusing to be censored, to be covered, to be assimilated. She opposes the violent force, but he strips her. She struggles as he strips her of her particularities, her beauty, her uniqueness. He strips her of identity and dignity, scraping away at her pride, rendering her unrecognizable. His tools slide snakelike across every curve of her being, her valleys and peaks, no longer hers, fall to the carpet like haunting snowflakes of failed resistance. I lie on my back and stare at the popcorn ceiling: an embodiment of the feminine entrapped by four walls of masculinity. I stare at the popcorn ceiling and think that she is righteous and remarkable. She alone is distinctive, she alone is bare. Her small mounds of texture expose the boundaries between ceiling and wall, a vast landscape of uncharted territory situated delicately amongst clusters of poster and photograph nations, islands of framed artwork, and whole continents of shelving units. Her territory belongs to her alone, her body comprised of a mass of unclaimed, untouched regions, protected by her own feminine features: each mound of immalleable sheetrock liberating her from the oppressive force and corruption surrounding her on all sides. I lie on my back and stare at the popcorn ceiling as she becomes nothing more than a fifth wall. Her rarity slowly vanishes as the perpetrators scrape away her womanhood bit by bit. They do not recognize her beauty or realize her worth, these men. They force her into complacency with their shards of steel, rubbing roughly against her, rendering her unrecognizable, indistinguishable, slaughtering her esteem. I lie on my back and stare at the popcorn ceiling as these men do her an irreparable injustice, the ramifications of which shall alter her eternally. I lie on my back and stare at the popcorn ceiling as these men transform her from the essence of beauty imbued by individuality into all that is odiously ordinary and nondescript. I lie on my back and stare at the popcorn ceiling as these men remove her sex, thrusting, thrusting their weapons of manhood, thrusting, thrusting his weapon of manhood, until gender is obsolete, humanity abolished. I lie on my back and stare at the popcorn ceiling as the Popcorn Ceiling Removers diabolically defeat her. I lie on my back and stare at the popcorn ceiling as I am defeated. I lie on my back and stare. |
