Tag: feminism

Documentary Poetry/Feminyx
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Do You Know What It’s Like?

by Olivia Walters

A car that’s not that far away,
It’s just another sunny day,
Music in both ears and a spring in step
A walk that’s made with happy pep

Smile bright,
Step light,
No threat in sight,
No thought of flight,

A headline here,
A story there,
Reports made in fear,
Now we beware

A car that feels so far away,
Headlines, protests, every campaign,
The story of a friend made prey,
Of daily walks that end in pain

Smile bright turned smile tight, 
Oh so polite, 
Bodies close, feeling small,
Til even thin smile isn’t there at all

One state’s risks we learn and know, 
From numbers in past years gone by,
Of one hundred thousand hopes to grow,
Three hundred voices will yearly cry

Look left, look right,
Ears free of any distraction,
Metal keys gripped tight,
Can we call it overreaction?

Attempts made, attacks started,
hear the news, gone cold-hearted
Smiles bright, still under twenty-five,
Tomorrow’s report has now gone live,

Cases in the news today,
Yesterday, yesteryear, 
Three hundred yearly truths laid bare,
These next truths could be anywhere

Growing pressure on our smallest choices,
A question asked by many voices,
An experience on the weekly radar,
“Do you know what it feels like to hurry in the dark to your car?”

Smile bright a year before,
Smiling tight forever more,
Keys in hand and music off,
Headlines made that music stop

 

Written and Photographed by Olivia Walters

Olivia Walters is a Psychology major at Sierra College with a curiosity in Journalism. She hails from Georgetown. In fall 2022, she plans to pursue her major in forensic Psychology at Sacramento State University. Her interest areas include creative writing, studying astronomy, and music.
Documentary Poetry/Feminyx/Money/National
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Yes I Am

by Jessica Mananquil
lock on fence with 'sos' reference that also appears as 's loves s' because a heart-shape stands in for 'o'

Words were screamed across the room
A man was beaten, battered, and tried
Everything comes to a halt
It all comes down to this; who lied?

I watch from the safety of my own home
Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard,
The trial that is being seen across the world

The comfortability and safety of my own life
Sits in the back of mind, rarely coming out to play
For others, their safety is dangling off a tightrope,
A finger away from falling into the depths

One in four women
One in nine men
10 million suffer
10 million too much

After a marriage full of hate, fear, and humiliation
Witnesses are brought to tell the truth as
Everything comes to a halt
It all comes down to this; who lied? 

Interruption, objection, hearsay
Years of being silent,
Depp is silenced once again
But now is the time to tell his story

Seeing toxicity since childhood left him bruised
The shadows of trauma followed him to his adulthood,
He didn’t have a voice then, but he has one now
In horror I listen to the audio clip playing at the end of testimony

“Tell them Johnny Depp, I, Johnny Depp, a man, 
I’m a victim too of domestic violence”
What did he say?
“Yes I am.”

 

Written by Jessica Mananquil | Photo by Georgy Rudakov, Unsplash

Jessica Mananquil is a Journalism major at Sierra College. She plans on transferring to San Francisco State University to pursue her interest in news and feature writing for fall 2022.
Education/Embodied Mind/Feminyx/Life Cycle/Money
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The Period of Change

by Jessica Mananquil
empty laundry basket on bathroom floor with paper sign in it, 'if you need one, take one, if you have one, give one'

College students spend thousands of dollars on tuition, living expenses, food, gas, etc. but have little room for anything else. What if you had to choose between period products and groceries? This situation occurs more than people may think. A new study found that 14.2% of college students experienced this problem known as Period Poverty in the past year.

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