These hands, 

Stretched 

Broken 

Cracked, 

Filled with the liberty to create, 

Filled with a desire. 

Desire that burns. 

A desire that traces to every single vein, 

connecting to my heart 

pulsing rhythmic word. 

Changing thought to art. 

Changing soul to hymn. 

These hands entice me,  

These hands have changed me. 

From air to sound drifting in the wind. 

From withering to blossoming.

From sin to virtue. 

Carved with a delicacy that identifies me. 

These hands, Sacred, Cracked, Yet Beautiful, never fail to captivate me.

Untitled Poem by Me*

My first memory of Wooster is vague. The fog-induced rain and petrichor glaze over the image of walking in the middle of Beall. I wasn’t nervous or tinged with excitement, just numb, and I had already spent the past three months arguing with my family over my decision not to run track and field at the collegiate level. Ultimately, Wooster was the only school I applied to without posting recruitment videos, and they didn’t require SAT or ACT scores. 

What I do remember, was that the weather and soggy leaves mudding under my feet were fitting for someone who had given up and settled. As a first-generation student, the goal of college is to avoid self-expression and surmount all the struggles your parents had. My parents were not going into debt and taking out loans so I could find myself. Conversely, the only thing I intended to find was a law degree. 

Individualism was a gift and privilege not entitled to me. 

I remember planting my feet on the broken bits of concrete while sitting on the curb of the street. I had been leafing through the sodden pages of a study abroad packet while my parents grabbed the car. In all honesty, the condensation that escaped my lips was more enticing than attending college. I liked that I could control how shallow it was, the size of fog slowly inflating then disappearing into nothing amongst the foreground of passing cars. 

Individualism was a gift and privilege not entitled to me. 

I cried the first day I spent alone in my dormitory. I sent my family away early. I grieved for freedom lost since high school, where mistakes were innocent and didn’t result in the the loss of scholarships and my future. I grieved the idea that I would have to become an adult in a matter of months, and consistently justify my major. I grieved that those around me are weeded out by autonomy, while I am forced to stay in one place like a stagnant pond. 

In a way, not much has changed in my perspective. By sophomore year I had three jobs, participated in numerous organizations, concreted a life plan, and maintained my GPA. 

I still find individualism a luxury, but also a by-product of growing up.

It wasn’t defined or hallmarked with a warm smile after years of suffering when the credits rolled.  

I just realized one day that I had changed immeasurably.

Individualism was a gift and privilege not meant for me.

“Mirror Mirror on the wall, how do we make the wretched Snow White fall?“

“Send a hunter to tear her limb from limb, with a dagger and heart twice as grim. She will never suspect the man faceless under his brim, to carve out her face. “

“So you, my Queen, can wear her hollow grin, and smile as she regrets being the mortal Sin.”

And so went the evil stepmother to summon the entity of the Hunter to her throne room, impatiently tapping her black claws against the wooden arm of her chair. She pulled back the splinters of wood and chuckled when they would catch and prick her skin.

When the Hunter entered, she resumed composure and rose with grace, her black cloak gliding against the red marble floor. The Evil Queen hated waiting, when he bowed to kiss her signet ring, she gripped his chin into her hands, and dug her nails into his flesh, grinning as the surface wounds receded into his face, and the rotted skin pieces fell to the floor. The Queen peered down and stepped on them, and remarked:

“You shall take the girl into the woods and dispose of her. Be wise to bring me her face, and you shall have your wish.” The Hunter croaked and slithered into the cracks of the tile shrouding the floor in noir.

And so the Hunter went, and carefully placed Snow White’s skin into an engraved black box, and the adorned brass snakes on the lock intertwined and snapped shut. Immediately, the Hunter resurfaced in the corridor of the Queen’s chambers, landing as the floor creaked and the torches flickered. 

The Evil Queen entered carefully, her nightdress opening when she reached for the engraved box. Her hands trembled as the snakes receded into the curved grooves of wood, and she lifted the lid slowly. Her lips curled into a smile, and from her scaled lips escaped a muffled chuckle. 

With pace, she walked to the throne room without her attendants or guards, threw herself on her knees, pressing them into the cold marble to ground herself, and lifted the sacrificial box to her mirror. She screamed “Magic Mirror on the wall, take this skin and answer my call!”

The huntsman lurked behind and staggered back when the mirror flickered. It’s green light perforated every inch and corner of the room. 

The bright rays of light startled the Evil Queen, who then dropped the box and scrambled to pick up the skin of Snow White’s face and pressed it over hers, collapsing to the floor, and screeching in agony.

Without pause, the room fell silent. When the torches finally flickered back on, the hunter ran to his Queen, but her frame was eerily delicate. He peeled her face off the floor and brushed her frizzed tendrils behind her ears, but she did not have the appearance of The Queen.

What remained was a mosaic of skin grafts cemented together in black ooze. With horror, he dropped his majesty and realized she had been tricked, and he would not receive his wish. For her greed, she would spend centuries wearing porcelain masks, all painted with the vigor and youth of The dead Snow White. 

The emergence of the McDonald’s Adult happy meal has brought up numerous comments on the appearance of the toys. While the toys represent the original beloved characters, though unpleasant, this commentary echoes a much larger debate on the push of gender bias in McDonald’s toys. 

Undoubtedly, those of us who lived off McDonald’s as children remember the workers asking about the gender of the kids or making assumptions about the performance of the gender they saw. Little girls had malibu barbies and ponies, while boys received trucks and Star Wars memorabilia.

 In the lens of Gender studies, this is a prime example of how women’s subordinate role is sustained through American culture. More specifically, if women are associated with danger, uncontrollable bodies, and emotions, then the images we publicize must justify that a silent, submissive, and beautiful woman is what we must model ourselves after.

For example, Barbie, the hallmark toy for girls, represents no intersectionality of race and gender, has an abnormal accentuation of the ideal body, and overly feminizes the few non-traditional professions she has with glitter and pink sparkles. The perspective of Gender Studies pulls into question all the ways corporations instilled femininity and masculinity in our childhoods.