It’s like reading Foucalt but finding comparisons of
everything to prison a bit too on the nose.
Both ends of the panopticon—
prisoner acutely aware she is being watched.
warden ensuring her pose, posture, or walk
is unclockably femme.

A contorting silhouette attempting to
mimic its reflection.
desperate game of charades.
scribbled thick black line above my face
that resembles storm-cloud,
or the sound of buzzing,
or the dazed sound of ear-ringing that crescendos
in a movie scene to symbolize
confusion.

A drawing of the body
which invariably ends in being
detached at the most disagreeable
points-
transmogrified into bird cage,
or unblooming lotus
or Dali-esque abstraction—
anything but this fleshy,
Foucalt-prison-thing we find ourselves in.

Atlas adorns herself with Mother Earth in an attempt to feel more femme.

And isn’t that the familiar duty?
The assumption of a labor this back-breaking?
the unbearable heaviness of simply being?

Atlas gripped,
and the world merely spun,
continued spinning in silence
despite it’s boring into
her back

wailing skin—
the impossible barrier between
her rioting insides
and the chosen garment.

Atlas shrugged,
and Earth slipped down her shoulders again,
digging into her skin
but never catching.

Tomorrow she will try to
wear it again.

Tomorrow it might break skin,
and hold.

Maeve Vitello (they/them) is an artist, writer, and law student from Cleveland, Ohio. They write at the intersection of queerness, radical politics, and the midwest, and hope to give each of those identifiers the nuance and conversation with one another they are often deprived of. When they aren’t writing, they are dancing, playing elaborate board games and trading card games, or going down Youtube special interest rabbit holes. You can find more of their stuff on instagram @your_fave_maeve or @maeve_makes_art.