A Case for Equal Melancholy
Rent from DeepDyve- A Case for Equal Melancholy
after reading Edgar Allan Poe
During the whole of any dull, dark daydepressed men rise to murder us.Instead of reform, lawmakers petitionfor more Ritalin and ammunition.A woman in piqué pantsuits was poisedto run the whole male melancholy worldand lost. The suffrage campaign
during the whole of dull, dark daysof no voices, no divorces, of neardeath childbirths revivedwith new signage and marches.Caitlyn Jenner once proclaimedthe hardest thing about being a womanis deciding what to wear. She, who’sprivileged, wombless, and unaware
during the whole of any dull, dark daydesolate women don’t make headlines—like the percentage who give birthin prison, their due dates kept a mysteryfrom them so they don’t escape.How often they are shackled in labor,given twenty-four hours to bond with their infant,and no treatment for postpartum depression. [End Page 23]
Crystal Simone Smith is the author of Routes Home (Finishing Line Press), Running Music, (Longleaf Press), and Wild Flowers: haiku, senryu, and haibun. Her work has appeared in Callaloo, Nimrod, Barrow Street, Frogpond, African American Review, and elsewhere. She earned her mfa at Queens University of Charlotte and lives in Durham, North Carolina. She teaches creative writing, English composition, and literature.
