Feminist Horror as Dystopia

    After Coralie Fargeat's film The Substance

    1.  

    You made a Dystopia of our anthropocene

    —perhaps little had to be made—

    —for millenia made what You moulded—

    —running backwards from 4

    —counting down the months

    —or weeks             —or days

    —or is it only hours we have left?

     



    1.  

    i know You well enough to see

    the repression—the pain—

     

          in your inner city—

    masked so well the masses go blind

    —placated by smiles and—smothered

    affection—                You say it would be bet-

          –ter—if we had never met—

    yet

    You are not ready to let go

    complete-

          -ly

    of the love You know—

    the You-

          -me—



     

    1.  

    You split in two

    —like old and young—

    but your split is of 

     —You—

    ‘respect the balance’

           —seems a mercy—

    next to—

            ‘NOW YOU CHOOSE’

    —and

      take my best friend’s definition of ‘Man’

              —a predator who takes what he wants

    —and

      a Feminist Horror

       —is less horrifying than

    a Feminist becoming a Man—

     

     

    1.  

    i head down from the roof—of the roe street carpark—

    fairy lights disappear—behind metal doors—

    i ride the lift—plummet—to the ground floor

     —my car is on level two—

    plummet into a melatonin induced—antipsychotic

                 driven—sleep

    for—here drugs are required for beauty

    and—beauty is a definition i could not write

      —i wouldn’t understand after all—

     i’m autistic

    so–the officials prescribe me—The Substance—leads

                              —define—                                                   me off to sleep

    but—in sleep

         i dream of You—

    Kayla May Browne is a queer autistic poet and novelist living in Perth. She completed a Bachelor of Philosophy at UWA, majoring in English and Literary Studies and Classics and Ancient History with a first class Honours in English and Literary Studies. Her creative Honours thesis focused on constructing an autistic voice. She wrote her first novel in 2016 and followed it up with two others to make a trilogy, self-published in 2021. She has since finished two more novels. 

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