Delicate Condition

by Danielle Valentine

favorite superstition is the one that says more women deliver during a full moon than at any other time of the month. Transforming

into mothers instead of wolves. Howling like wild things.

I didn’t know this then, but the truth is there’s no such thing as an uncomplicated pregnancy. We all give something up in exchange for our babies. Nearly

everyone on this planet was welcomed by the sounds of a woman screaming.

part of me even thought maybe I deserved it, that things were going too well, that I was overdue for some trauma.

but that’s the thing about not being able to remember something, isn’t it? You don’t know that you’re not remembering. The picture in your head feels like the truth, even if it’s a lie.

wished people would stop telling women they should be grateful for their suffering instead of trying to help them with it.

Sometimes it felt like the continuation of our species was an ongoing experiment being performed on the backs of women. Or on our wombs.

Proof that I was no longer alone inside my body.

There was a part of me that would never leave the basement.

I wanted to scream in his face. I wanted him to feel, for just a second, what it was like to have your body taken away from you, to be treated like a vessel, a thing.

stumbled back into the bedroom, wondering if a woman has ever calmed down after a man told her to. My phone