New Poetry by Skaja Evens

Choice Over Life

I saw a picture of myself as a child

Six years old, innocent

Only a year or so before that first time

I found myself in a compromising position

With a boy who told me it was no big deal

My heart breaks for her

Because she felt her body wasn’t her own

The last time was maybe a few months ago

Nearly forty years later

When I, again, felt my body wasn’t mine

What made it okay for others to decide

To snatch away my autonomy

As though I didn’t have a high enough clearance

To view my body as sovereign, sacred

Capable of more than being a breeding ground

For lives that ultimately don’t matter

To those preaching that life begins at conception

I am thankful I never became pregnant

Not forced into the position to be an incubator

For a life used as a bargaining chip

And method of control from out of touch men

And the women clutching to their coattails

Setting the double standard

Guaranteed that those in power will always

Have access to what they deny everyone else

- Skaja Evens 2022

Skaja Evens is a writer and artist living in Southeast Virginia. She edits It Takes All Kinds, a litzine published by Mōtus Audāx Press. She’s been published in Spillwords Press, The Dope Fiend Daily, The Rye Whiskey Review, and The Crossroads Lit Magazine.