GirlChild Press is on My Space!!
Add us as a friend!

www.myspace.com/girlchildpress

Excerpts from "Just Like a Girl: A Manifesta "

 

Dear Girl
Trish Ayers

Legs balance your weight
come forty you will be glad --
make sure you stretch them

Travel, the world, see the sights
don’t let others constrain --
leap over fences

Dear Girl, hold your head up high.
Don’t be afraid of the wind --
or to travel against it!

top

 

Why Barbie Won’t Keep Her Shoes On
Sandra J. Lindow

Barbie dreams
of going to a plastic
surgeon to have her feet fixed.
Whoever planned her little stairstep
feet must have been a man, she thinks—
caring only for the way she’d look in heels
her mile long legs, permanently flexed,
no concern for her personal comfort and the small
pleasures allowed those who aren’t required to
tiptoe through their lives.

Like the foot bound
Chinese daughter whose tiny
mutilated toes were intentionally
broken to boast her father’s wealth, Barbie
knows she’s been handicapped, her well being
sacrificed on the altar of gender capitalism and
though she’s got shoes in every trendy color
and style, she’ll be damned if she’s going to wear them.

Get her
all decked out in primrose
pink prom gown, matching accessories,
stockings and heels. Turn your back on her
for just a minute to stuff Ken’s hopelessly
hugless arms into his gold lame’ Tux and
whoops! one of those flashy little shoes is
gone --prom delayed, while you crawl
around the carpet looking for it.

Meanwhile, Barbie
lies on her narrow bed,
smiling serenely at the ceiling.
Having successfully sabotaged
everyone’s plans to use her for
fantasy fulfillment, she dreams of a time
when she will be allowed to look her age,
her no longer perfect toes and heels
carrying her firmly, confidently
into the twenty-first century,
barefoot, yes, but never, never pregnant

top

 

No Chance
Julie Senger

I will not wait
for some man to ride up
on his silver horse to save me,
wearing a fancy top hat
promising me wheelbarrows of cash,
hoping I won’t notice that he
only has one shoe, giving him
no leg to stand on.

There will be no shooting
his cannonballs in me, no matter
how many new houses, fancy cars,
or red-hot hotel stays by the boardwalk
he promises. I do not possess a community
chest, nor do I offer free parking.

He will never win,
I know how this kind of man plays:
He comes in like a little, hairy dog and rolls
his dice, expecting me to iron out
his messes. That’s when it’s past go
time. I’ll not cover his taxes
or his electric company bills. Instead,
I’ll railroad his ass directly to jail,
where he’d begin his water works
while begging me to borrow
two-hundred dollars.

No, I’m not waiting for a man like this.
I’m a solid, self-sufficient little thimble,
                     who protects herself from just such a prick

top

 

Girrl
Niki Herd

find one thing to love
inside yourself
carry it like a gun
in guerilla hands
and when government
defeats you, mountains fall
lovers leave, and the words
of women before come
crashing to the ground
hold this love between
your hands, sing its name
like the alphabet
and shoot woman. Shoot.

top

 

Female Comic Book Superheroes
Jeannine Hall Gailey

are always fighting evil in a thong,
pulsing techno soundtrack in the background
as their tiny ankles thwack

against the bulk of male thugs.
With names like Buffy, Elektra, or Storm
they excel in code decryption, Egyptology, and pyrotechnics.

They pout when tortured, but always escape just in time,
still impeccable in lip gloss and pointy-toed boots,
to rescue male partners, love interests, or fathers.

Impossible chests burst out of tight leather jackets,
from which they extract the hidden scroll or antidote,
tousled hair covering one eye.

They return to their day jobs as forensic pathologists,
wearing their hair up, donning dainty glasses.
Of all the goddesses, these pneumatic heroines most

resemble Artemis, with her miniskirts and crossbow,
or Freya, with her giant gray cats.
Each has seen this apocalypse before.

See her perfect three-point landing on top of the chariot,
riding the silver moon into the horizon,
city crumbling around her heels.

top

 

Houdini's Sister
Christine Hamm

In the end, there's always the girl who understands
locks and a bone-toothed comb, the one who crawls under the table,
crams into the mouse hole, the one who gives the witch the wrong
directions. There's always the girl who knows the language of rabbits
and convinces them to let her ride astride, the girl who can live on
breadcrumbs and fog, who clings to the giant's ankle until he gets
tired of stumbling around the kitchen, looking for a cooking pot, and
falls asleep. There's always one left, the one who cuts off her hair
to make a rope (if that's what it takes), the one who talks the
blue-bellied salmon into carrying her across the river, the one
who takes the diamonds of her tears and sells them for a good pair of boots.

top

 

The Pose
K. Coleman Foote

Ethel and Helen scared of that camera of his, but I ain’t. He got us waiting here in front of the house, with me in the middle like usual. Everybody be thinking Helen the youngest ‘cause she the shortest. And that man is sniggering at us and saying, “Come on, little ladies, smile a bit for me.” Ethel and Helen can do what they want, but I ain’t smiling for nothing, especially since he made me hold this dog of his.

Daddy ain’t been gone but a year, when that man come snooping ‘round Muh. Each time he visit, he be bringing us saltwater taffies from some place he call Lannicksitty. As much as I like me some sugar, I leave those things for Ethel, Helen, and Bud to eat. I don’t even lick the inside of the wrappers afterwards. Now he come with this dog name Daisy as a gift for us, and that camera of his. He done took pictures of just about everybody in Vaux Hall. You shoulda seen ‘em: the ladies was rushing to put on they cleanest dresses, and the men was brushing dust from they slacks. Some of ‘em even posed in front of that man’s Ford, since it was the shiniest car ever come down Waldorf. Just plain forgetting that my daddy was ever here.

Muh made us get all dressed up this morning, and it wasn’t even church day. She made Ethel put me and Helen in these stiff dresses and these droopy white stockings that get dirty soon’s you leave the house. Don’t make no sense. What we gotta look nice for that man for? If he ever saw us how we usually was, with our hair halfway done and wearing the smocks that had holes and rips but didn’t itch, maybe he wouldn’t try to catch me and Ethel and Helen on the basement stairs.
I saw Bud in the corner by the bureau, putting on his new knickers slow so they wouldn’t catch on his stockings. That just burned me up. I felt like screaming and punching and kicking him all over. Just about everything get me mad like that these days. It’s like I get this nasty itch all through me, and it don’t stop till I got somebody all roughed up.

This morning, it was Helen who started it. She had her dress all curled up in her arms when she said in that whispery voice of hers, “Y’all think he gone marry Muh?”
“Shut your trap,” I snapped at her.
Ethel, who was buttoning my shoes, said all matter-of-fact, “Well, Daddy ain’t around no more.”

I can’t stand Ethel sometimes. I shoulda kicked her, that’s what I shoulda did, but I waited till she stood up before I made my move. I grabbed her hand and bit it. She tried to pull that hand away, but I tried to break her bones. Bones, bones—like that mump-faced boy at school said was left of my daddy in his grave. By the time Ethel got her hand out my mouth, she was sweating and breathing all heavy. I could see the teeth marks in her skin, and that made me feel good. She knew better not to mess with me back. The last time she ever hit me for something I did, I told her she’d wake up with a bucket of water in her face. Sure enough, when it happened, I snuck outta bed extra early to pump that water all by myself, and did just as I promised. Muh didn’t usually take up for Ethel, since she say she the oldest and should know better, but that day she pulled out the leather strap that daddy used to sharpen his shaving knife on. I ain’t even cry when she whupped me, though, just looked at her straight in the face. Muh always be shaking her head at me and saying I got that same mean streak her daddy had. She can say all she want. I don’t care. I’ll keep right on being mean as I wanna.

So that morning, I didn’t stop with Ethel. Since Bud was getting dressed all careful-like, I charged at him. Ethel held me back, so all I got a chance to punch was his can of marbles on the bureau. My knuckles hurt and that felt good. Hearing those marbles clang all over the floor was good, too, ‘cause Muh was downstairs being all ladylike and having tea with that man. Next thing I knew, she was at the top of the stairs. Seeing Bud all shaken up, she went straight for me and hit me across the face. My skin stung, but I ain’t even make no noise. She always taking up for Bud, like he a baby or something. I can’t stand her. She started to yell cusses at me but stopped short, ‘cause she musta remembered that man was downstairs, and you could hear anything you wanted through our cardboard walls.

I folded my arms across my chest. “I ain’t taking no picture and I don’t want his ugly ol’ dog.”

Ethel and Helen and Bud was staring at me like I was a loony or something. What could Muh do to me? She didn’t want that man knowing how crazy we all was. I have to admit that sometimes I don’t mind so much when he come by, as long as he don’t pretend like he need to go to the toilet while me or Ethel or Helen’s using it in the basement. ‘Cause whenever he come by, Muh be forgetting to cuss us, and she remember to cook for us, and she hide that corn husk pipe and nasty ol’ spittoon of hers. And she don’t never touch that bottle of stuff she call bathtub gin, which made me and Helen throw up when we snuck some.
I put my hands on my hips just like she do and dared her to make more noise and embarrass herself in front of that man. But next thing I knew, she had her hands around my throat and was lifting me off the ground, shaking me like she did those chickens out back...

Order your copy of Just Like a Girl to read the ending to this story and more! www.girlchildpress.com/products.html

top