Personal Essay — Writing

Posts in Personal Essay

Now No-one Here is Alone

Two days in the court of family violence

Everyone here in the waiting area of the Family Violence Court Division of the Magistrates Court is playing a game. It’s called Bad Guy or Victim? Women are curled on chairs, glassy-eyed and stunned, their family and friends dozing beside them, while men pace up and down in righteous indignation, or sit texting furiously.

Law, Personal EssayMelissa HowardSeptember 16, 2018

Loosen up my buttons, baby

Spring, 2013. I am pregnant with our second. The hormones make me feel sad and unhinged. My partner closes off tightly from me, like a fist.

While there are joys—does anything possess more anticipatory sweetness than a newborn-sized bonnet?—a taut balloon of anxiety swells underneath my chest-bones.

Relationships & Sexuality, Personal EssayMelissa HowardApril 16, 2018