Cara Ianuale & Ellen Clayton
“Unfiltered” is purely a breath of fresh air in this critical society. It is a celebration of a natural female figure. Loose brushstrokes and unconventionally-attractive proportions reflect the imperfectly beautiful nature of all female bodies, rejecting the impossible beauty standards that attempt to contort women into something they’re not. Plain white underwear does not overtly sexualize the figure; rather, it embraces the body supportively.
Cara Ianuale
Hysterical Women
Ellen Clayton
Once the small talk is done
we settle into our closeness and
the truth begins to
spill
from our mouths.
We talk of the anxiety.
We all feel it but
it manifests in a myriad of ways.
For some it gnaws away
in the pit of the stomach,
a physical pain that prevents us
being functioning adults; working
For others it is a panic attack.
Waking in the night with fear clawing at her throat -
an inability to catch a breath,
chest full of angry wings beating beating beating
For still others it’s more low lying.
A constant feeling of dread:
a rising fear in our body that we
control by keeping our worlds small;
we don’t try new experiences or
explore different places.
Has this affliction always been present in women?
In bygone days would we be diagnosed with hysteria -
treated in unspeakable ways to be cured of our feminine disease?
Perhaps it’s this age of social media which has exploited
our fragile mental health,
the constant comparison stealing our joy -
always striving for absolute unattainable perfection,
we bought into a myth of having it all and
are burdened by
incessant pressure to do more and be better;
to achieve career success and fix the world and save the planet and free the oppressed and keep our homes clean, we mustn’t fuck up our children either and of course we should do yoga and meditation daily, recycle and reuse, eat plant-based foods and take classes to learn something new and read books and express ourselves creatively and I could carry on if you want, except
I can’t breathe.
Hysterical Women read by Ellen Clayton
Cara Ianuale is seventeen years old. She is the founder and president of the non-profit organization the Purpleprint, which seeks to uplift female and nonbinary artists.
Ellen Clayton lives in Suffolk, England with her husband and three young children. She is an avid reader and enjoys writing poetry in any spare time she can find. Ellen’s writing often focuses on her experience of motherhood and love in all its forms. Her poetry can be found on Instagram @ellen_writes_poems.