Report from the Two X Chromosomes
Olivia Burgess
Content Warning: swearing
All good daughters want to keep their last names. All good daughters want to
bite their nails and pile them and make keratin hearts. They want to artfully make
a snack and leave crumbs in the bed, measure perfumes by spraying the hollow air
and choking on the fog that follows them. The fog they can’t get rid of.
They’ll debut a new shower gel to the three on the shelf and admire at the decay
of their childhoods, make a claw-clipped smile and a bathroom secret. All good daughters
know that the best their body looks is in a towel: shapeless, elusive, or the worst. They know
about muffled voices through the carpet and trying to unpick plaster walls, finding
all the lost syllables and long, aching sighs. They know their future is planned
and fucked and saturated, like an indie movie, the uncut version where
you can’t skip to the end. All daughters want is to be good. To make people laugh.
To have the freedom to make people laugh because humour is a skill. Like anything,
anything they learn is a habit or a function that has been chopped with time,
and they’ll use it someday on someone in a bar or empty church or ill-scented office,
and that is what it comes to. This is what they come to - manic footnotes, a scribble at the crown
of an exam paper, the tissues because they’ve run out of reusable pads, and the diary
entries because they care more about everything, more than they’d like to. They’ll return to
Earth one day, her lengthening fingers for their hair, but right now -
All daughters feel, with their bodies, or maybe just long-dead brain cells. They feel more
unnamed things than the earth has ever claimed to. They feel, and long, and sigh. They wonder
if this is where they’re headed, if feeling is all they’ll ever do. If they feel, they’ll survive. If feeling’s all they’ve got, maybe they could put it somewhere. So they write poems, sing songs,
cry only when the blinds are down. They feel, even when the people tell them
not to. They’ll keep leaving bras on the floor and getting white socks dirty. They’ll write a poem, author it with their name. Smudge the ink and sigh, because they’ll forget the last.
bite their nails and pile them and make keratin hearts. They want to artfully make
a snack and leave crumbs in the bed, measure perfumes by spraying the hollow air
and choking on the fog that follows them. The fog they can’t get rid of.
They’ll debut a new shower gel to the three on the shelf and admire at the decay
of their childhoods, make a claw-clipped smile and a bathroom secret. All good daughters
know that the best their body looks is in a towel: shapeless, elusive, or the worst. They know
about muffled voices through the carpet and trying to unpick plaster walls, finding
all the lost syllables and long, aching sighs. They know their future is planned
and fucked and saturated, like an indie movie, the uncut version where
you can’t skip to the end. All daughters want is to be good. To make people laugh.
To have the freedom to make people laugh because humour is a skill. Like anything,
anything they learn is a habit or a function that has been chopped with time,
and they’ll use it someday on someone in a bar or empty church or ill-scented office,
and that is what it comes to. This is what they come to - manic footnotes, a scribble at the crown
of an exam paper, the tissues because they’ve run out of reusable pads, and the diary
entries because they care more about everything, more than they’d like to. They’ll return to
Earth one day, her lengthening fingers for their hair, but right now -
All daughters feel, with their bodies, or maybe just long-dead brain cells. They feel more
unnamed things than the earth has ever claimed to. They feel, and long, and sigh. They wonder
if this is where they’re headed, if feeling is all they’ll ever do. If they feel, they’ll survive. If feeling’s all they’ve got, maybe they could put it somewhere. So they write poems, sing songs,
cry only when the blinds are down. They feel, even when the people tell them
not to. They’ll keep leaving bras on the floor and getting white socks dirty. They’ll write a poem, author it with their name. Smudge the ink and sigh, because they’ll forget the last.
Olivia Burgess is a 17 year old raised and residing in the UK. Her poetry focuses on nature, love, her muse (who shall remain unnamed) and her internal dialogues. She has a smattering of publishings, from a short story chapbook to Paper Crane Journal, with forthcoming work in Cathartic Lit. A notorious ’people-pleaser’ she enjoys gift giving, telling too many jokes, and engaging in the art of cooking.