KateLynn Hibbard

Deflowering. I still think it's a strange way to characterize a woman losing her "virginity."  I still think "virginity" is a strange way to characterize the state of not having been penetrated by a male.  But here we are in the 21st century with a culture that in some ways seems to be speeding backward in terms of women's bodies and women's rights.

When it happened, I was a feisty 15-year-old, not feisty enough to resist everything negative being taught to me about my body, but bold enough to realize I deserved pleasure.  And the experience itself was not pleasant at all (not that I have ever met a woman who said it was...)  It was a relief to have it behind me.

"Deflowering'' appears in my current manuscript Unblossoming, whose central metaphor concerns the process of growing, aging, and dying, which happens whether we're paying attention or not.  Whether we act purposefully to cultivate our lives or give in to its inevitable wildness and disarray. 

When I crafted this poem, I was of course struck by the way the language co-opts the vocabulary of flowers and plants.  And I thought about my own garden, a massive and sprawling expanse of mostly perennials, mostly planted by my spouse 14 years ago.  I thought about the irony that I am surrounded by flowers for months and months out of every year, yet I very seldom pick any of them.  Even the idea of dead-heading seems too violent.  I want to leave the blooms for the bees as long as they will have them.  It's enough to see them outside my window, their petals magically intact.