I knew that down south were the unmentionables, the part of my body where legs met. But over the years this zip code seemed to expand and cover parts of my body that used to feel sun and air. Snarky comments from the ‘woke’, who’d long ago disposed of their unmentionables, were absorbed by sensors that started a silent alarm: danger, danger! Exposed skin felt beams from their eyes like lasers, then sonic waves of contempt, scorn, and barely concealed excitement that they’d have something to talk about with their equally stale, sapless colleagues. In like an ox circle seemed the direction to go. The black cloth did turn off the alarms, but dreaded memory held to pulsing, strong muscle, eyes that saw and registered, and private moments of no contraction, no shut down, no shame. In a paradoxical fashion only those who proclaimed allegiance to victimization through the unmentionables (original ones) got to speak of agony, so that agony and her sisters despair, futility, and angst were intertwined with the unmentionables.

“This tree’s growing nowhere.”

They plant others to mutely and smugly take the space.