Alice Greczyn Instagram – The refund told me before she did. She’d kicked me out of her poetry class. She, who exhorted women to tell their truth and to tell it fearlessly, said that I’d made some women in her class feel “unsafe.”
My crime? Sharing that my wildest dream was to be on @joerogan.
She’d opened her workshop with a poem about not being a good girl. “Fuck good,” she’d said. I’d believed she meant it.
“You openly declared you’re not a safe person,” her message explaining the refund told me. Yes, fellow writer, because you know more than anyone that writing is not safe. The pen is as dangerous as a camera is as dangerous as a gun.
I’d sent her the declaration accompanying my most controversial blog piece when asking permission to sign up for her class. I’d wanted her to read it before entering her space with my truth. “Alice, pleeeease sign up,” she’d assured me. “These women are truth-tellers.”
I fell for it. Instead lifting me up, she let other women tear me down.
I found another poetry class that wasn’t exclusive to women. I know women aren’t the problem and that women’s spaces are meant to provide safety. But I’ve learned time and again that a safe space is a rigid space. An exclusionary space is a cancel-able space. It doesn’t matter what the criteria is for membership. If it’s not open to all, I now assume it is not open to me.
According to some, I am a dangerous woman. These coaches accuse me of this while their Instagram bios celebrate being dangerous women themselves. “Good girls never make history,” they quote, preaching Instagram Reels about rejecting ideas of feminine docility—then rejecting me if I don’t reject docility in their way.
I’m so done. Fuck your safe space. Fuck your feminine retreat.
Woman, I love. Women, I fear.
Love and light, bitches. 🚬
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#NotesFromMyNotes of 2021, shared #forthepoetry. | Posted on 23/Mar/2024 03:05:29
