I learned long ago the difference between shame and guilt: guilt is “I did something bad.” Shame is “I am something bad.” The opposite of shame is pride. But how to transform something that not only you, your community, even the world at large thinks is “shameful/bad”?

I found a way — I turn it into art. And so have you. In my poetry books specifically, I wrote about my life in snippets of memoir mingled with poetry, reductive, simple. I did not come out looking like a rock star, let’s be honest. Because *I* was honest. I am flawed. So I wrote of my flaws, as you did here.

One particular moment for which I was ashamed: I lied to my little girl. She was five, and caught me doing something “shameful.” With a man NOT her father (we were getting divorced) no less. AND we lived with my religious (Mormon) parents, and of course, my daughter told my mother. GODS. The shame…mostly for lying to my daughter. What could I possible SAY to her as she finds me in delecto in the middle of the night with a strange man in the living room when she came out to find me? So…I lied. I wrote about it. All of it. And in writing about it, just as you did here, I found compassion for myself — which is one of the best ways, I’ve found, to combat shame.

BTW…your body is beautiful, inside, out. I watch porn ALL the time. I watch women-on-women porn ALL the time. I have the “cellulites” and have had it my whole life — fought it, lost, won, then lost again, at almost 49-years-old. Finally? Blood. The emotions women have surrounding the blood are amazingly intense and strangely jarring. EVERY WOMAN BLEEDS. Why, oh, why are we so shamed, and ashamed of it? I was asked to write an original monologue for the Vagina Monologues being performed at a local theater. My monologue was so well-received that women in the audience were bawling. My monologue was about the blood. You can read it or listen to it in my new short story collection coming in November of this year. Meanwhile…

Foisting again, but bear with me. From my up-coming poetry collection, work in progress, a snippet, since the whole piece contains language that might offend some readers:

holy

…sex is a war between crushing pelvises —
entry and withdrawal —
blood, the war paint
smeared on bellies and thighs
and sheets.

primal and raw,
crushed flower petals
under bare feet,
the scent of fur on the back
of a wolf’s neck.

blood sex
is the beginning
and the end.

it is instinctual —
why women were once revered,
long before the patriarchy
sullied it —

the blood considered holy;
women holy,

because we bleed…

but we do not die.

— from “holy,” work in progress, j.a. carter-winward

* * *

Own your body, blood, ravenous love of sex, sexuality, perfect imperfections that make you you. Own it all and let your art transform you and the world. Then…let us teach our daughters.

Peace to you —