Did you know Feminist Confessional has a YouTube channel? The channel is a repository of more than 80 spoken word poetry videos, most of which were written by Melita White, as well as a handful of poems by well-known poets. If you enjoy the videos, please subscribe. You can find the Feminist Confessional YouTube channel here, or click on the image above.

I’m writing this partly to test this trick, which didn’t come from the WordPress staff.   It actually came from some of you, so thank you!

All the WP staff tells us to do to access the Classic Editor is to “go to WP Admin.”  Do they assume we’re all techies?  I’m sorry, but I’m old and need things like this explained to me like I’m old.

Here are the actual instructions.

Go to your WP Admin page (I’m sure everyone knows where that is)

Look down the column on the left until you find “Posts” and click that on.

On the Posts page, click on the “Add New” button at the top of the list of posts.

It should take you to the Classic Editor.  It worked for me.

Now, why can’t the WP staff tell us this?  It’s as if they want to force us all to use the…

To read the text of this poem, click here. You can also turn on auto-captions in YouTube, in the settings menu, if you wish to view captions.

You can read the text of Sneak here. To watch this video with auto-captions, please turn them on in the settings menu in YouTube.

The blood
Marks me
As a woman incapable
Of mothering
Every moon

Stigmata
On cruciform sanitary pad
Growing stain
Reminding me
Of my irrelevance

I bleed internally
From excess womb
Invisible wound
Evidenced by bloated belly
Looks ripe but is empty

Embattled within
No red cross protects me
From enemy fire
I haemorrhage with ease
And lose credibility

And so on this most feel-good of tributary days, on the day of the deification of The Mother and all that is maternal, loving, warm, caring, nurturing, selfless, giving and kind, I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day.

To those who were unmothered, who were ignored, abandoned, abused, subsumed, repressed, oppressed, used, treated as a friend, or a play-thing or a no-thing.

To those who grew up without role models, so that a mother means mean and selfish and distracted and childish and foolish and unpredictable and explosive.

To those who mothered and continue to mother themselves, though without the guidance of role models do an imperfect job, alternately indulging the self ‘s every whim and punishing it with endless barrages of internal criticism.

To those who mother others, but not necessarily themselves. To those who had the mother-child role reversed, and learned to play carer, nurturer, listener, genie-in-a-bottle-granter-of-wishes, not…

heart says:
this is good
will heal wounds
subconscious drives heart
subterranean rumbles
seemingly seamless with self
fuels ecstasy
fired by heart
which always agrees
always says
yes please
i am flying
and i want
more
fill up the more
with still more
i beg you
yearnings come from heart
urges cravings
stoke want need
desire for skin
softly melts
swells lips
lubricates
mood set aloft
inebriates
heart
wants to soar

heart ignores head
head is distant
rationality
head is cold
says
i’m the boss
your filter
valorised by humanity
by vain argument
of capability
denial of need
my specialty
but use me
and i’ll keep you
level
aloof
removed
head looks for neat sums
that feel complete
but rarely come

gut knows best
shocks and churns
in instant response
to threat
knows head is slow
to catch up
language and logic
its speed bumps
and heart too quick
to…