What I Think About When Someone Uses “Pussy” as a Synonym for “Weak”

     At the deepest part of the deepest part, I rocked shut like a stone.  I’d climbed as far inside me as I could.  Everything else had fallen away.  Midwife, husband, bedroom, world: quaint concepts.  My eyes were clamshells.  My ears were clapped shut by the palms of the dead.  My throat was stoppered with bees.  I was the fox caught in the trap, and I was the trap.   Chewing off a leg would have been easier than what I now required of myself.  I understood I was alone in it.  I understood I would come back from there with the baby, or I wouldn’t come back at all.  I was beyond the ministrations of loved ones.  I was beyond the grasp of men.  Even their prayers couldn’t penetrate me.  The pain was such that I made peace with that.  I did not fear death.  Fear was an emotion, and pain had scalded away all emotions.   I chose.  In order to come back with the baby, I had to tear it out at the root.  Understand, I did this without the aid of my hands.