Several years ago, I started medical school with a great deal of optimism and idealism. I think most of us do at the onset. I beheld the esteemed profession with enormous respect and reverence. Doctors can transform the social determinants of health. They can hold the fate of lives in their hands. They can bring dead bodies back to life. They can carve cancer out of bodies. They can alleviate pain and suffering. Doctors are noble, selfless and sacrificial. That is who I thought my mentors, colleagues and teachers would be—who I would be. Some of this came from the public perception of the physician. Some of this came from the perfection that the medical school application process demanded of applicants given the highly rigorous competition.
As I went through the journey of medical school, I realized the reality that lurks beneath the surface. Medicine is an ancient profession and it subsequently brings with it the ugly scars of ancient traditions, historical injustices, and discrimination. Compounded to this, the power dynamics and hierarchies built into medicine prevent it from responding to changing times as nimbly as other disciplines. I describe some of my run-ins with these scars in this poem.
He looked at you with his earnest undergrad eyes
The ones that were taught to glorify doctors
The ones who studied orgo for 7 hours today
The ones that were told the MD was unachievable
And the same ones that defied this with an edge of cocky and a VR of 15
And he asked, “what’s medical school like?”
I stared blankly.
Medical school was like eating cake at midnight on your birthday to your phone’s silence—it was the first year that your sister didn’t call
The first of many, I guess.
Having the crow’s feet and shitty complexion set in even when you’re the youngest in your class
Asking the man who mocked sexual assault awareness for a reference letter
Not being able to tell your dean that the reason you hate rural living is because you were stalked and harassed by a bloody mary of white supremacy and revenge porn
Staring at death and sickness, and feeling nothing
Laughing along at how Hamilton is “sketchy” in the office of public health
Being asked what your hobbies are at a 100 hour/week job interview and laughing in the faces of sombre-faced surgeons who were too offended to laugh with you, even uncomfortably.
A paramedic asking you “why Black people just can’t be better”
A bunch of disconnected fucks in disconnected cities in the homes of men who narrated “Crooked Hillary” and asked you to laugh at their “Indians don’t know English” jokes so they could feel less racist
Watching your spirit-woman goddess of a mother get sicker without being able to do anything—no matter how much studying & education & tuition dollars—what an asymptote
Treating racists and sexists and homophobes
Becoming a racist and sexist and homophobe–for the sake of survival
Being the pedestal for white men in your professional life now, too—what else is new
“LAR is low anterior resection,” I whispered
Not being able to explain your identity with all of the words you know—and mind you, you know a lot of words because well, IB English:
“MD, medical school, doctor. Dr. Doctor.”
“So what does that make you? A nurse?” they ask matter-of-factly.
Standing in your colleague’s waterfront apartment and feeling like you don’t deserve it
Listening to a doctor tell you how being in the top 1% isn’t enough while being blinded by the flash of his Benz
Thinking you deserve the world because of the phenomenon known as “the sacrifices of the 20s”
Gaining 15 lbs on your daily hospital breakfast—hospitals aren’t for health, silly.
Never practicing what you preach and always skipping lunch
Resist changing the system so maybe you didn’t have to skip lunch
Expecting everyone else to skip lunch because you skipped lunch
Demanding more money, because, well—you skipped lunch goddamit
Medical school is simultaneously too much, too intense
Like every woman within it
So much so that I can’t process it all enough to muster up an answer
And also not nearly enough
Not enough of what I needed and wanted and expected
Not enough of what the public needs and wants and expects.
Medical school is like
When I asked him to gag and choke and slap me last night
And it felt good.
Medical school is like
When he left promptly after matting up my belly hair in the middle of the night
And left me to finish his wine
In the good company of:
my pain
my inability to cry
Drake’s rip-off of Lauryn Hill
and my 23rd birthday
“Medical school is great,” I replied.
So then he asked, “would you do it over again?”
And I answered, “when asked to choose between my man and my career
I had chosen my career.”
There’s your answer.
Not just because he had asked the question in the first place
A question I had not asked him
And nor would anyone else
Because well, Doctor Mister Him He Deep Voice Big Bicep Penis Between His Legs.
But because the echoes of the U of T kid flashed back—
“It’s an abusive relationship.
But I will always go back,” he had said.
He was not wrong.
U of T kids are wrong about many things
Like eye contact
And be-ing hu-man.
And work-life balance
But they are never wrong in the genre of philosophical masochism.
The opinions expressed by the guest writer/blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Brown Girl Magazine, Inc., or any employee thereof. Brown Girl Magazine is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the guest writer/bloggers. This work is the opinion of the blogger. It is not the intention of Brown Girl Magazine to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. If you’d like to submit a guest post, please follow the guidelines we’ve set forth here.
NAKED: The Honest Musings of 2 Brown Women was born in the autumn of 2018, when Mimi Mutesa and Selvi M. Bunce began sharing their poetry collections. It was scary, beautiful, and terrifying when they decided to trust each other with their most intimate thoughts. Not only did they feel relieved after doing so, but Selvi and Mimi also felt more seen as women of color. They embarked on their publication journey, so others may feel as seen as they did on that fateful autumn.
“Ingrown Hair” deals with the themes of societal and family pressures that are reflected throughout NAKED. Mimi and Selvi have always written for themselves. They see poetry as an outlet, and their poems exemplify their personal frustration and vulnerability. “Ingrown Hair” speaks to Selvi’s experience with the societal pressures of South Asian women, such as getting married, being a good wife, becoming a good mother, and leading a certain kind of life.
There is something strange beneath my skin
telling me to build a house,
make a home,
mother children.
I am not sure how to reconcile it.
My mother was strong
and a mother after all.
My philosophy has been to spend my time
on myself and the world.
I have always thought
I could simply address the thing under my skin
when it finally crawled out.
But when my family starts guessing
who will get married first, and my father
has been saving wedding money for years,
I begin to wonder
if I will have to pluck it out.
The opinions expressed by the guest writer/blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Brown Girl Magazine, Inc., or any employee thereof. Brown Girl Magazine is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the guest writer/bloggers. This work is the opinion of the blogger. It is not the intention of Brown Girl Magazine to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. If you’d like to submit a guest post, please follow the guidelines we’ve set forth here.
Social media has stretched a number of news headlines:
“Social media rots kids’ brains.”
“Social media is polarizing.”
Yet those most affected by social media ideals are the teenage users. Apps like Instagram and TikTok perpetuate an image of perfection that is captured in pictures and 30-second videos. As a result, many young women chase this expectation endlessly. “Her” personifies this perfection in an unattainable figure the narrator has always wished to be. These ideals deteriorate mental health, create body dysmorphia, promote a lack of self-esteem, and much more. Even so, social media is plagued by filters and editing—much of what we hope to achieve isn’t even real. Therefore, young women, much like the narrator of “Her,” strive for a reality that doesn’t even exist.
When she walked into my life
Her smile took up two pages of description
In a YA novel.
My arms could wrap around her waist twice
If she ever let anyone get that close
Her hair whipped winds with effortless beach waves
And a hint of natural coconut
Clothing brands were created around her
“One Size Fits All” one size to fit the girl who has it all
With comments swarning in hourglasses
But when sharp teeth nip at her collar,
She could bite back biting back
And simply smirked with juicy apple lips
Red hearts and sympathy masking condescension
“My body doesn’t take away from the beauty of yours”
“We are all equal, we are all beautiful”
Beauty
A sword she wields expertly
Snipping, changing,
Aphrodite in consistent perfection
Cutting remarks with sickly sweet syrup
And an innocent, lethal wink
When she walked into my life
She led my life.
My wardrobe winter trees
Barren, chopped in half
Unsuited for the holidays
Mirrors were refracted under in my gaze
Misaligned glass was the only explanation
For unsymmetrical features
And broken hands
Still I taped them fixed
Over and over
Poking, prodding
Hoping to mold stomach fat like wet clay
Defy gravity,
Move it upward
To chest
Instead of sagging beneath a belt on the last hole
In the spring
She would stir me awake at 2 AM
“You need to be me”
Lies spilled from her tongue but
Solidified, crystallized
Fabrication spelled dichotomy
And I drifted farther out to sea
When she walked out of my life,
I was drowning.
Reliance had me capsized
Others witnessed
Furrowed brows and glances away
Like spectators of a shark attack
They can watch but the damage is done
They clung to my mangled pieces
Gravestones spelled
“Stressed”
“Depressed”
But I was mourning too
Today I looked back at my mirror
But glass turned into prism
Broken pieces rainbow
Colors coating clothes
She didn’t pick
Aphrodite
Perception changing
She wasn’t perfect
Just lost at sea
The opinions expressed by the guest writer/blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Brown Girl Magazine, Inc., or any employee thereof. Brown Girl Magazine is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the guest writer/bloggers. This work is the opinion of the blogger. It is not the intention of Brown Girl Magazine to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. If you’d like to submit a guest post, please follow the guidelines we’ve set forth here.
“Confessions to a Moonless Sky” is a meditation on the new moon and guilt. I wrote it when I was living in Dallas and was driving back from a dusk prayer. The new moon terrified me on that drive. I was diseased by the knowledge that my partner, at the time, had seen the worst parts of me. There’s immense shame in this piece—it seized my self-image. If the moon could become brand new, then I could start over.
I often ponder on the moon’s reflective nature and pairs of eyes. I’m hyper-fixated on how I am seen by others. Unfortunately, the brilliance of seeing your reflection in another person leads to negativity. After all, those who are too keen on their own reflection are the same people who suffer from it. It is possible to use shame to fuel one’s retribution and personal growth, without becoming consumed by it.
We can look to Shah Rukh Khan succumbing to alcoholism in his own sorrow and then later imbibing his sadness in Chandramukhi. “Confessions to a Moonless Sky” is a lesson for us: Don’t be Shah Rukh Khan in Devdas, instead embody pre-incarnation Shah Rukh Khan in Om Shanti Om!
Sometimes when the moon abandons the sky, I wonder if I drove her away.
If she comes back, will she be the same? How I wish she would come back new, truly new! That way she’d have no memory of the sin I’ve confessed to her. You noxious insect. Sin-loving, ego-imbibing pest. You are no monster, for at least a monster has ideology, it sins with purpose. You sin just to chase ignominy.
But the moon won’t say that, she never does. She’ll just leave the sky and return days later, slowly. And I’ll wonder if she’s new, perhaps she won’t remember my past confessions. What does it matter? Were the moon replaced with one from a different god, I’d drive her away, too.
