Breasts -or- If It Happened

A couple writing friends and I have assigned ourselves writing exercises based on the The Sun Magazine‘s Readers Write topics. There is one due each month covering a wide array, but the submissions must be ones where you are the only authority–in other words, your personal experience. If you would like to participate, go to The Sun Magazine’s site here and view the topic due the first of the next month. That is our deadline, too. We share our results with each other for fun, not critique, unless you ask for some and the others have time. You may choose to let me publish it on this blog, but better yet, post it on yours! Or not at all. You don’t even need to share, it’s very relaxed. Just write. It’s amazing what comes out.

∞

So, the Feb. 1, 2015 topic was ‘Breasts’. I wrote a thought piece and my writing buddy, Suzanne, reminded me that The Sun‘s Reader Write editors lean toward personal memoir based on factual experience. I would enjoy a discussion highlighting the worthiness of inner dialog as an experience that shapes us like actual events. However, we adopted this flagship so we want to adhere to it’s style. As it happened I decided to turn it into a poem to see if it worked better that way. I realize I’m breaking away from what I perceive as the rules, but meh, who cares. As I said, it’s a relaxed writing exercise, and I wrote something!

 

Breasts -or- If It Happened

Would I do it? Let them take one if it happened?
I’d look a bit odd. A binary O and I. Or O and —.
I could get that tattoo I’ve always contemplated,
never able to think up the right design to last a lifetime.
Would I live long enough for it to blur like an old sailor’s tattoo?
I want to have a lifetime. Is that the price?
Doctor, I’ll trade you a breast for a few decades.
That would be the medically sanctioned bargaining stage then.

What if it’s both? I could go swimming in just a Speedo.
I could be an ambidextrous archer.
I could be happy I’m not lop-sided, but
I think I’d miss admiring at least one in the mirror.
It’s viewing would be forever altered, too.
Maybe I should reread The Beauty Myth,
get over the vanity before it’s seems a like putting on a brave face.
If I get It. I’m a childless peri-menopausal woman so aren’t I more at risk?
Why haven’t my girlfriends and I discussed this?
It’s a lonely exercise, asking yourself hard questions.

I see I’m running at the mental mouth. I’m just testing the waters
for the loud and proud Anjolina Jolie in me. Wanting to know
I could butt heads with any traitorous cells, and not give in to their smirking doggedness.
Be proactive! Push the frightened child onto the stage.
And the next one. Be my own stage manager.

But what if it’s not so cut and dried, if you’ll excuse the pun.
A long war of skirmishes with traitors requires positive thinking.
Would my pragmatic skepticism get in the way of that?
There must be some truth in mind tricks because look at the placebo effect.
So, if I think like a warrior then perhaps—no, I will be one.

It’s an exhausting topic.
Maybe that’s why we don’t talk amongst ourselves before it becomes an issue.
Forget learning archery, I need mental juggling practice.
A Felix the Cat bag of tricks would come in handy,
to have on hand while cycling through the ups and downs and tangents.
Then I could relax and live in the now. I hear that’s a good trick.
If it happens.

Inga Duncan Thornell’s tattoo after a double mastectomy. The photo was first published in Margot Mifflin’s book Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo. It went viral which has surprised Inga who says, “if it helps more women to feel better about their bodies, then I will try to keep my blushes to myself.” Tattoo by Tina Bafaro, in Seattle.

Note: To all women who have had “it happen” my thoughts and prayers are with you. You are warriors who have been called up. For more awesome tattoos from survivors click here. My favorite is #16.