Make sure you have access to two things;
condoms and pockets.

The word NO is your most powerful weapon.
Use it with purpose.

Remember that women live longer than men;
not all men, but especially those
who have thin-lipped smiles, stone faces,
and whose eyes never meet your gaze.

Read the words of women:
Atwood, Plath, Ponsot, Sexton, and Shelly.
Commit them to memory.

You are NOT your body,
and your body belongs to you.

Always speak your mnd.
Honesty is the dividing line
between the sacred and profane.

Motherhood is not an obligation.
It’s a choice.

Marie C Lecrivain is a poet, publisher, and ordained priestess in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, the ecclesiastical arm of Ordo Templi Orientis. Her work has been published in California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Gargoyle, Nonbinary Review, Orbis, Pirene’s Fountain, and many other journals. She’s the author of several books of poetry and fiction, and editor of Ashes to Stardust: A David Bowie Tribute Anthology (forthcoming/copyright 2022 Sybaritic Press, http://www.sybpress.com).