World of Women: Volume I

15 writers stare into the female glare

She spun life unto us

Image by Jay Soundo.

Girl Dinner - Julie Radford

How can you be loud and proud when you’ve been starved to fit into a size zero?
Obliterated. Berated. Rated nonetheless.

You taught me to duck and be fucked -
up down high low. Always ready for another blow.

I have no gut to trust,
I just rip it and flick it and patch it up again. Longing for lust and stuff, instead stuffing Vicodin drenched cotton balls rubbing on rust and mush.

Gently though. Quietly.
Smile. Swallow. Saint. Sinner.

Stuck in a coma - dissociated roamer.
Serving your boner.

Suck on my fibroadenoma.
Thrust into my cystic twisted uterus -
traitorous, dangerous… rapturous.

Untangle my barbwire throat -
hold me, love me, comfort me.

Untie my combat boots, unbuckle my studded belt -
we all float.

Down here.

Uproot my true beauty underneath that well padded meat suit.

I might run on shame and guilt -
but it’s anger and fury fueling my every unbuilt stilt.

I feel and feel and feel -
yet my face stays blank,
blue fire in my eyes behind opal glass.
I scream and scream and scream -
still you laugh at me.

Hazy, lazy nod. Steaming rot.
Come and bile with me.

© Julie Radford 2025

Image by Felix Young.

Patriotic - Melanie Cole

When I was seventeen,
I fearlessly screamed the
word ‘cunt’ In front of over
one thousand people and
being that girl became a
part of my identity.

I used to run races to raise
money to end violence against
women and girls- Tough Mudder,
Spartan Races- the hardest
races I could find, and that
became a part of my identity, too.

When you’re a woman, your
body is like a country that’s
always at war. I picture the
Baltic states in the 90s, or
maybe even Palestine. Every
time you step outside your

home, you must suit up,
gear up, for battle. Don’t wear
your hair in a ponytail so they
can’t grab it. Wear tennis shoes
so you can run away. Put your
keys between your fingers and

always, always, always, have
pepper spray. I have been
sexually assaulted multiple
times in my life. Most times by
Someone I have known well.
The first time happened when
I was three years old.

I didn’t know that my body
was a country then. Around the
age of fifteen, I discovered what it
meant to be patriotic in my body.
I met trans women for the first
time, who celebrated their

bodies as if every damn day
were the Fourth of July.
I met lesbians, and everything I
heard about gay people on TV
suddenly made no sense. It was
like the United Nations of women.

And I, too, had permission
to love my body. I had the
permission to be patriotic–
not in the way America tells
me to, but in the way the downy
hair that grows between my

legs does. My body is not a
temple; it is a country. It is
at war, and it is starving, and
it is begging for recognition.
it is begging for freedom that
can only be given by others

who do not know, nor understand
it. But I remain patriotic.
I fly its flag and some days,
I am still the young girl who
screamed ‘cunt’ in front
of twelve hundred people.

This poem is dedicated to all the women with whom I have performed “The Vagina
Monologues” over the years. I appeared in the production seven times, from high school
through college. It was a truly life-changing and celebratory experience.

© Melanie Cole 2025

Image by Alejandro Peralta.

I Don’t Want a Month, I Want What I Deserve - Shayne Buchwald-Nickoles

He pulled out a photograph of me from his binder. Not many blonde-haired women in Pakistan, the Academy counselor said. That’s all—harmless. You need to make the other students feel welcome. As if my existence must soothe, not stand firm.

A guy was talking. I wasn’t listening. I stay to myself. Charlotte, Avril Lavigne. Later, a CD slides under my door, A sticky note with a room number. How did he know where my room was? I got up. Locked the door.

"Take off the skirt, shoot straight." A taunt, a lesson, a threat. Blood is not weakness, and yet, they point, they mock, Tampon or Band-Aid—pick your shame.

"Come to the boardroom, let's see what happens." A bar downtown, a call for pickup. A wife. An argument. What does it mean to be needed? What does it mean to be used?

The murderer beneath me—his license, the truth. "Not him," they say, not believing my catch. "You got lucky." No luck in instinct. "Oh, that’s right, you carry a girly gun." Yet it was my hands that held the moment steady.

Two of them to cuff him. She would rather fight than shoot. He thanked her afterward. What did she do—hug him? A hand-job?

Protected class. What does that mean? It means you are female. It means I am black. Protected from what? Protected from who?

She got that job because she’s a woman. She got that award because she’s a woman. She probably slept her way to the top.

You did great. They loved you. Call back— There was nothing you could have done. It was so close. Between you and the other, I chose the other. A man.

But I did it. I led, I fought, I stood. I am good. I am smart. I am brave. I am kind. I am worthy. I am happy.

                                                   I did it. I am tired.

© Shayne Buchwald-Nickoles 2025

Image by Anna Tarazevich.

My Body Is My Curse Is My Temple - Ute Luppertz

It never ends. No, I don’t have an eating disorder. I have a conflicted relationship with my body, with the looks of it.

Not a day goes by that I am not questioning this body of mine. The inner critic can be strong and loud. She keeps whispering to me about my weight, my breasts, my legs, and, now that I am older, my belly.

Curvy, Rubenesque, petite, slender, round, sturdy, just right, full-figured, slim, skinny, athletic, well-proportioned, average, pretty, gorgeous, cute, and thin are descriptions I have heard about my body and my physical appearance in different circumstances.

I did not ask! But it had an impact.

I spent years as a young woman trying to mold my body into an impossible shape of perfection, one of slenderness, an ideal that I thought would make me look attractive. Diet after diet after diet, which made me miserable and cranky.

The reality is that I am of average weight and height proportions. My weight fluctuated over the years, but no matter what it was, I always thought of myself as being fat.

I know the origin story; it dates back to my childhood. My mother instilled these ideas in me, yes. Do I blame her? Not anymore.

Is my story unusual? Not. Are there worse scenarios with body image? Yes, for sure. I have not been afflicted with anorexia, bulimia, or food addiction. My story is one of many.

So, why am I writing about this? I dared myself. The inspiration came on a whim when familiar negative thought patterns resurfaced. It takes courage to write this; I feel vulnerable and exposed. And there’s power in this dare. Writing about this breaks the patterns of shame lurking beneath the polished and sophisticated surface, the shame concealed by intelligence and psychological knowledge.

Now what? I have found that the way to acceptance is to tend to my body with love. Ha, that sounds cliché, I know.

I stopped abusing my body by over-exercising. I stopped ignoring her need for rest and replenishment. I stopped dieting.

I love dancing. I love touch. I love moving. I love that my body works like a miraculous orchestra to keep me alive. I am in awe of her innate wisdom. I have made it my practice to tune in with my body and ask it what she needs and listen.

As some wise ones have said, your body is the house you live in, and you’re the guest. Treat it like your temple. There!

© Ute Luppertz 2025 - A version of this piece was originally published in Medium and revamped for World of Women.

Image by James Superschoolnews.

Dishwater Chronicles - Chelsea Nelthropp

Hands deep in dish guts.
Red sauce under fingernails.
Sink drain, sinkhole—
sucks the noodles down.

The baby isn’t crying.
Five minutes to finish
the greatest (lamest) race
from basin to rack.

Thought-sharks swim
in the sea of subconscious:
When was she changed?
How did she sleep?
Does she need to eat?

I’m tired.
But also wired.
I think of a poem—
something about soap,
and hangnails,
and the devil.

Speaking of evil—
now I see it everywhere.
Don’t touch my baby’s hair
(or kiss ANYWHERE).

I heard a rumor—
a friend of a friend
was afraid of raccoons
stealing her newborn.
That’s insane.

Finally done.
I lock the door.
Forget.
Check again.
Head to bed, only to lie awake
and Google:
Do raccoons have opposable thumbs?

© Chelsea Nelthropp 2025

Image by Jay Soundo.

Supersymmetry - Edward Swafford

She wants to spin like both bosons and fermions, interlaced (or interspersed?) with ocular particles of she/her vampy VA-VA-VA-ReVoLuTiOn.

It’s symmetry. It’s gravity. It’s gravitas.

Feminine isomers entrap and ensnare with equalized theories: is she friend or foe, seductress or appeasing virgin?

Appetites WHET. What she craves the most? A gravitino neutralino mirror image partner. A slice of her unto him begetting both.

Renormalization of eloquent estrogen and tempestuous testosterone, after all, every human-refracting-modulus possess BOTH.

If only dark matter weren’t choke holding her in pubis parity. If only flavor violation was as blind as we should be. If only gauge mediation had a name or a face or a fucking heart.

The hierarchy remains. The heretically “politically correct” cross-section reminds. The benchmark of bastardry, REWINDS.

It’s only supersymmetry.

It’s not real life.

© Edward Swafford 2025

Image by Ekaterina Belinskaya.

And She Wore Morning Like a Secret - Carolyn Jones

The sky peeled itself open
not in violence,
but in revelation.
She stepped into the garden
barefoot,
earth warm and
pulsing like something
half-remembered
from a dream.
A robin snapped the air
with its crimson throat,
sharp as flint,
sudden as joy.
She felt her thoughts
gather at the edges,
not as burdens,
but as flame-tips
itching for wind.
The world was not asking,
it was insisting.
So she stood still,
ankle-deep in clover,
crackling with awareness
and let the morning
rewrite her.

© Carolyn Jones 2025

Image by Cottonbro Studio.

Coats - Tina Rogers

No longer on the receiving end of lurid comments, unwanted gropes in dark nightclubs, lascivious stares and angry exclamations of
Tease. Frigid. Lesbian
when I’m not flattered and I do not reciprocate.

At first, I wondered if I was becoming invisible
when these demeaning assaults ceased.
The space left, felt like a lack.

But I’ve learned to breathe

and expand into this space.

And with each in-breath

inhabit my own skin a little more.

Become unencumbered.

Embracing salt and pepper hair
the map of my skin.

Dropping societal pressures
like sliding from my shoulders
a sodden, stinking donkey jacket.

Disturbed by a conveyor belt of hyper-sexualised carbon copies:
My wish is for everyone to come to know Walcott’s words -
‘you will love again the stranger who was yourself’.

And so,
I joyfully wear this new identity:
A magical coat light as air.
Embellished with fine silks and golden thread.
That gently lifts my chin
and my spirit.

© Tina Rogers 2025

Image by Ulaş Ocaklı.

Temporary - Wildflower

a maiden
forged into
a warrior

-

sheer
pureness
stained by
predominant
hands

-

constrained
to suppression
enforced
obedience

-

unscalable
vibrancy
enchained

-

siren chant
damped
to aphonia

-

desolation

-

remembering
the ancestors
the descendants

-

a spark
ignites

-

purging wrath
disrupting
narrow bonds
of repression

-

the reversal
was
temporary

© Wildflower (Mia) 2025

Image by Jackline Addis Ababa.

REGGIO CALABRIA - Stephanie M. Vargo

I’ve got my street magic
That resonates in my pelvic bowl
Travelling deep in my innards
With a rhythm that matches the pulse
Of babies born and ghosts shed,

The comings, the dreadful goings
Of creatures, demons, and angels
Awaken when I scream prayers
At the goblins on the walls,

Dancing according to their whims
My daydreams are narcotic
Indistinguishable from the thick visions
That captivate my sleep.

The believers are robotic
Their eyes roll up into their heads
At the clicking of loose teeth,
Voodoo dolls of fate
Follow the audience of audacity,

Plump girls dance a samba
Yodeling folks songs
Celebrating the escapades of young men
That regale the crowd with invisible hands,

Swept away by the rituals
I participate in mass hallucinations
Where gods descend
Inhabiting trusting bodies
And removing the curses of ancestors,

I image my grandparents
Caught in this frenzy
Spilling blood to bless the earth
With the balance of cool reason.

How many moons have I drawn down
In my incarnations as priestess
To invoke the power of the tides
To pound sand into gold?

© Stephanie M. Vargo 2025 - A version of this piece was originally published on Substack and revamped for World of Women.

Image by Shahin Khalaji.

In The Cafe - Jack A. Macdonald

in the cafe
in the city
I drink the steaming dark from a plain white mug.
it’s raining outside
and I stare out the window as the taxis and the people
race by.
with my computer open in front of me, I hover
my fingers over the keys.
but I can’t think of anything.
I am distracted by that short, beautiful girl
working behind the counter.
brown hair
green eyes
large cheek bones
and a little waist.

lie down with me.
tell me
everything.
tell me how virtuous you are
how proud you are.
tell me about your parents
your brothers
the terrible snowfall last winter
how you had to scrape the ice off your car before work.
tell me about the guilt
and the suffering
and the pain
burrowing somewhere—you don’t know where.
tell me about how cruel you once were
how awful you could be.
a river rushes by and carries dirt from the bank.
your hair looks messy in the mornings.
you were late to work today
because the rain ruined your mascara
and you helped your little brother find his backpack
and the taxi driver took a wrong turn
and the closing-staff forgot to wash the coffee-grinder last night.

tell me your darkest secrets and your greatest failures
and your deepest confessions and your worst fears
and all the despicable, evil things you’ve done in your life.
and let me love you anyway.

your mother is supportive and overly talkative
and your father gets on your nerves
because he gives too much advice.
there’s an old man in the elevator.
his wife died last year
and every morning he gives you a little smile—his teeth yellow and crooked—
because maybe you remind him
of her.
a dog waits by the bus stop.
his name’s Revy, and he waits for his owner each day after three.
sometimes
you stop by the gas-station and pick up some mints for your
little brother after work.
he never thanks you, but he doesn’t need to.

I will love you
even if the building fell.
I will love you
even if the gods weren’t real.
I will love you
even if the sun went black.
I will love you
even if the ocean dried up.

I will. I will.
I would.
I can’t look at her. I can’t afford it.
my seat feels too hard and I stare out the window relentlessly.
but the rain has stopped

and my coffee’s gone cold.

© Jack A. Macdonald 2025

Image by Jayson Hinrichsen.

Why Women Need the Patriarchy - The Forgotten Muse

the core of a woman
is to be seen,
not to be heard.

for silence speaks,
louder than words.

why then would i need
a voice of my own,
when a man
can speak on my behalf?

motherhood is rewarding,
nurturing is beautiful.
so why would it be a choice,
and not my life’s purpose
to be fruitful and multiply?

rinse and repeat

decisions are overwhelming,
confusion is rife.
when i say no,
please negotiate with me,
for i know not what I want.

absolute power corrupts (women) absolutely.
so give me freedom
but only with conditions,
lest i stray off the path laid out for me.

what a beautiful contrast:
to be pure,
yet risqué enough
to please my betters.

and what of catcalling?
little snippets of admiration
that i welcome with pride and joy.

our protectors have base, innate urges.
a small price
for the gift of masculinity.
and so
i must dress appropriately,
to not trigger the beast.

…and if someone falls prey
to the natural order,
we must always ask;
what was she wearing?
for therein lies the blame.

and what of this equal pay malarkey?
laughable!
why would i earn the same
when i bring less
to the proverbial table?

it’s a man’s world
and we’re just living in it,
so let’s take what we can get
and be thankful for it.

Do. You. See. How. You. Sound?

Sit. with. it.

and if it made sense to you…

congratulations!

you. are. the. problem.

© The Forgotten Muse 2025

Image by David Rado.

We Weren’t Made to Burn: Reclaiming the Empowered Feminine Through Self-Devotion - Samantha Gregory

There’s a quiet unraveling happening inside so many of us.
Not in protests or viral posts.
But in the ache behind our smiles.
In the silent scream behind our “I’m fine.”
In the soul-deep knowing that the life we were told to want is draining us.

I know that ache. I lived it.
Raised to be the reliable one.
Trained to anticipate everyone else’s needs before my own.
Praised for holding it all together.

Until my body broke.
Until my spirit whispered, “No more.”
Until I found myself standing in the mirror, hollowed out by burnout and early menopause before my mid-thirties.
I had given everything.
And still, it wasn’t enough.

That’s the lie, isn’t it?
That we must earn rest.
That we must exhaust ourselves to prove our goodness.
That we must shrink, soften, and serve to be loved.

But the truth is, the empowered feminine doesn’t emerge from striving.
She rises when we return to our center.
When we remember that devotion to self is sacred.
That rest is not a reward, it is a right.
That joy is not selfish, it’s our natural state.

I work with women who’ve already started to wake up.
They’ve glimpsed what’s possible beyond survival.
They’re done pretending, done performing.
They want a life that fits the fullness of who they are becoming.

We don’t need to fight to belong.
We need to remember that we already do.
The empowered feminine is not a brand.
She’s not a buzzword.
She is the wild, wise, worthy voice that lives beneath the noise.

She shows up when you say no without guilt.
When you let yourself cry without apology.
When you dare to want more than scraps.
When you give yourself pleasure, presence, and permission to be whole.

I no longer work for approval.
I no longer bleed for belonging.
I choose softness as strength.
I choose rest as rebellion.
I choose self-devotion as a way of life.

This is the path back to power.
Not through force.
But through flow.
Not through perfection.
But through presence.

We weren’t made to burn.
We were made to bloom.
And the world is starving for women who remember that.

© Samantha Gregory 2025

Image by Anya Juárez Tenorio.

Perenelle - Peggy Coke

I can spin gold from nothing
The purest form of alchemy
I can birth life from loving
And evanesce your chastity

I can take a roof and walls
Made from any substance
And from them render tranquil halls
Bursting with abundance

I can transmute arcane pain
To power and resilience
I can take the moon in wane
And polish it to brilliance

I can feed an army
With the milk from my own breasts
I can cradle mountains
When the Earth herself needs rest

I carry the cradle of creation
In the cauldron of my womb
Souls are spun out of my blood
I am the weaver and the loom

I am the answer men have sought
When first we left the oceans
I am for whom whole legions fought
For the gift of their devotion

I hold the secret knowledge
Which grants immortality
I am the sacrificial lamb
For man’s immorality

Men have squandered their whole lives
In search of stone or grail or well
And the alchemist - all he had to do
Was look at Perenelle

© Peggy Coke 2025

Image by Baris Selcen.

Billions of Contained Fires - Fiona

Forever guessed,
never understood.
Suffocated by the kindness
they tied around my ankle
like a silky ball and chain.

What will happen
if I choose
to burn the world?

How do I escape the gravitational pull
of who I'm supposed to be ?

Clean girl.
Slutty.
Messy.
Pick one.
Pick right.
Or pick wrong.
But never come back.

Play your role.
Do your part.

Be understandable.
Stay graspable.
Containable.
Little.
Soft.
Unheard of.
Do not exist.

Because my layers
are mountains
they don't bother climbing.

A wasteland is less frightening
than facing the peaks.

Witch.
Sulphurous.
Incandescent.

We bleed from growing petals
and forget to cherish our thorns.
Taught that sweetness
is survival.

So my lipstick is smeared.
My words,
disgusting and indecent
erupt from elegant lips.
It shocks them
It angers them.
And I love that.

Delicious walking paradox.
I am the
fabricated woman.
The fantasy never reached.
Expected,
but always too much.

The rebel
and the follower.

I am what i was taught
and what I was forbidden.
I am my mother
and her worst enemy.
I am my reflection
and the rage I feel
when I see it.
And it will never be enough.

© Fiona 2025

Behind the vermilion veil

*Video embeds courtesy of Cottonbro Studio.