Sophie Furlong Tighe: February 2021 Poet of the Month

Photo: Joanna C. Valente

Anna asks me if I’ve been shaving my pussy in quarantine

And I say no, why would I need to care about my vagina here. Anna asks what “need” even means and I am suddenly hacking away at myself in the shower. A foot on the edge of the bathtub, trying to draw straight lines of smoothness until the water runs cold. I am reaching for a towel and suddenly a memory crawls through my chest first, then shoulders, neck, throat, throat, brain. Once, Andrew suggested we step out of his shower when it ran out of heat. I pat my legs dry, and decide washing my hair in front of him was more intimate than the sex we had five minutes after. Not that I can recall either cleansing beyond the fact of them, really. It’s hard to treasure a memory you regret the premise of, to christen a moment with suds in your eyes. I try to remember if he ever smacked my ass, and choose to believe he didn’t. Knowing though, that violence was not out of the question, that “harder” often was the question. I spread myself apart in the mirror. Remember not being able to breathe, feeling hands pressing wrists. I didn’t shave for him. Sometimes you just have to take your hurt out on someone else, I think. That can mean letting them take theirs out on you, I guess. I have always punished people for not loving me. I have also punished people for loving me. Sometimes that means asking them to hold you down and making them name why they liked it.

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Sophie Furlong Tighe is a poet and drama student based in Dublin. They are the editor of Icarus Magazine.