HerStry publishes one Personal Essay every Wednesday. Weekly Personal Essays are a way for writers to tell the stories they want to tell. There are no rules. No themes. Nothing is off limits. For essay submissions check out our guidelines.
I’ve often wondered: Why don’t you see birds drop dead from the sky? Surely it happens. There couldn’t possibly be a mechanism that keeps it from occurring. Could there be? Something about the nature of the flight that keeps beings in a state of suspended life, no matter the outcome?
Read More“Can you please repeat what I just said?” Debbie asked. Her usual, wry smile I recognized so well said, “Why do you even try to fool me? I know you so well.”
“Oh…what…No, I am okay, I got you. I actually heard you,” I replied.
“No, you didn’t, and I know it. I absolutely do not mind repeating myself for the fourth time, Abha. And, if you really got me, why don’t you repeat what I just said? Repeat it,” Debbie said.
Read MoreDear Breasts,
It’s been almost two years since I saw you. My last memory of us is you hidden underneath a checkered teal hospital gown that flapped against my naked bottom. I couldn’t look at you. I pictured the doctors cutting you off and resting you on a silver platter next to the operating table. Two jello molds, each with a cherry on the top. The whole thing felt surreal.
Read MoreWhen I was a little girl between the ages of six and eleven, I loved Barbie dolls. In my child-mind, Barbies (not just Barbie, but the other dolls in the line like Ken, Skipper, and Midge), with their anatomically incorrect, smooth, hairless, nipple-less, sex-organ-less bodies, silky hair, and infinite array of matching outfits represented the untarnished, uncomplicated yet glamorous life I might build for myself.
Read MoreMy pelvic floor is broken. The PT slides her fingers inside me and presses on a spot at the back of my vagina. A jolt of pain shoots through the inside of my ass. Not exactly my ass, it’s too far forward, but like the outside of the inside of my ass. It’s a hot spark deep inside where the tissue is tender and aching beneath the rock-hard surface of nebulous vaginal-anal space.
Read MoreFor years, I used my hair as a diversion.
It began with my ponytail phase. Every picture in my mom’s photo albums show me with my hair pulled back into a ponytail. The photos didn’t capture the back of my head and the way I carefully color-coordinated my ponytail holder with the day’s outfit.
Read MoreI’m the only disabled person in my family. I was one of the very few visibly disabled people in high school, university, and later in the workplace. My experience of disability has always been characterised by comparison.
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