FLINTA* Voices create space to speak without restriction, without dilution, and without apology. We opened our platform to FLINTA* writers and creators who confront and redefine gendered realities, who understand empowerment not as a trend, but as necessity, and who expose patriarchy not as abstraction, but as lived experience.

The Woman Tree

It has grabbed my ankles and it won’t let go. I can’t see what it is because the fog has swallowed my legs, all up to my waist, but I can feel it tugging at the little bones in my feet, pulling my skin, crawling towards my knees. I try to scream but the fog won’t let the sound of my voice come out. I try to shake it but my feet and my legs are suddenly made of some kind of lead mixed with a grimy substance I can’t identify.

All around me the fog has melted everything grey, the ground, the grass, the twigs, the trees, the town I left not so long ago, the memory of the town’s name, the memory of my own lower body. I can’t seem to remember the shape of my feet nor how to make them move. My arms are stretched forward, but my hands seem hazy, stuck in a useless attempt to grab some invisible help.

It dawns on me I should look up beyond the fog and somewhere from that melting grey a naked dark branch is bowing to the ground, leaning towards me. I reach out and touch it, it’s wet and gritty and it makes my hands bleed but I hold onto it and start to shake my shoulders and my breasts and my waist and my hips until I can finally move my ankles out of that grimy substance I still can’t identify. The branch seems to move up towards an invisible tree and an invisible cloud. My hands hurt, my head hurts, my chest hurts, drops of blood are colouring the fog pink, my hair is entangled in overflowing dead leaves, but the naked dark branch keeps taking me higher towards its invisible tree trunk.

I look down and I can see my feet again, and my legs already bruised from being grabbed and pulled at. Something dark and gritty still seems to want to come out of the fog and grab my ankles again, but I can see my entire body now, my feet and my legs and my hips and all their possibilities.

The naked dark branch keeps carrying me higher, above the fog and the ground and the grass and the twigs and the trees and the town I left ages ago. Then it suddenly stops and I can see the huge tree with many other naked dark branches carrying many other bruised women whose blood is colouring the fog pink. I look up again and there is a gap in the clouds and a tremendous blue starts to wash over my bleeding hands and over my bleeding arms and I start laughing and howling and all the other bruised women are laughing and howling with me.

We are out of the fog.

Everything’s fine

Oh go on, have another glass of wine, who cares it’s only noon, it’s Saturday and you’ve already done all the cleaning the house, grocery shopping and cooking for the family, you’ve even baked a chocolate cake for dessert, really, I don’t know how you’ve made time to do that, so of course you deserve a nice break and a second glass of wine and a nice relaxing half-hour on your balcony, even if it’s freezing, at least it’s peace and quiet, and you deserve a third cigarette as well, even though you promised yourself and everybody else you were going to quit this year, but of course you deserve it, you deserve all of it, because it’s Saturday, you’ll maybe soak yourself in a nice long bath afterwards, it’s the middle of the afternoon, so what, the kids are out with their friends, they have more of a social life than you do, but that’s fine as long as they’re happy and your husband is gone somewhere doing whatever DIY project gets him going these days, go on, get yourself in a nice bubble bath, and maybe masturbate yourself a little while you’re at it, you know very well that’s going to be the highlight of your week, you’ve always been great at solitary orgasms, even though your man is nice enough and he’s good enough to release that tension and it’s always good exercise but after 20 years he’s like tepid beer though, I mean it does the trick but it doesn’t shake your knickers off, doesn’t sweep you off your feet, off your tits, doesn’t make you scream or forget about everything, not anymore, you’re still telling, after 20 years, that you don’t like it when he does that to your nipples, that he’s always going too fast when really he should be slowing down, and all that saliva when he licks your clitoris, you’d say it’s pouring down there, and you’re still telling him, after 20 years, how you would like to be touched, but he always forgets and afterwards, when you’re lying there over the crumpled sheets, he always says he’s sorry, and then you feel bad because you do love him and you always forgive him because there’s so much tenderness in his voice and you can only fall asleep with his smell in your nostrils and he’s a really good dad, but an orgasm in the steaming bathtub by yourself is really what you’re craving and you feel a little better afterwards, you get out and you dry yourself really good and get into some nice comfortable pyjamas and you tell yourself it’s not that bad, really, what do you have to complain about, how many women do you know who are in their mid-40s and live an ecstatic sexual life with their husbands / wives / long-term boyfriends / girlfriends / partners, I mean you have a nice house, the kids are healthy and happy and they do pretty well in school, your husband is nice enough, he’s helpful, he’s caring, he’s a great dad, sex was great at first, for the first year or so, it’s only natural that things calm down after a while, you pour yourself another glass of wine, because it’s Saturday and you’ve deserved it, it’s been a glum week with all this rain and this never-ending winter, you sit on your sofa in the living-room, wearing your nice and comfortable pyjamas and enjoy your wine and you tell yourself you should try and appreciate what you have, unless you want karma to get back at you, you shouldn’t ask for more because what more than this is there, really, no reason to complain, to get all frustrated, all in a mood, I don’t know why you get so angry 

all the time, this is it, this is your life, pour yourself another glass of wine and so what if you’re drunk in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday, the kids won’t come back until later in the evening, if they come back at all, they’re all grown up now, and your husband is lost somewhere in the garden, enjoy your glass, see how full it is, nothing to worry about, nothing to be angry about, must be this awful week or PMS or menopause knocking on the door, it’s always hormones anyway, nothing to worry about, nothing to get so worked up about, it will pass, everything’s fine.

About the Author

Adriana Cassian is a poet, writer and artist living in France. She writes short fiction, poetry and novels in French and English and is also founder of a small printing workshop, publishing artist books.

In her writing and artwork, she’s exploring words and images and the multi-level relations between the two. She is interested in the way words can be moulded into multiple meanings and various forms. Some of the issues that she tackles in her writings are dealing with trauma, personal and collective, women, their body and the difficulties in self-acceptance and self-reliance.

@adriana_m_cassian