"Pre-Deployment Checklist"
by Amy Sexauer
I don’t know what the boys did
We put on dresses
Or wife beaters
And went dancing.
Twirled in the parking lot
Until we puked
We shared masturbation stories
In the ocean outside of Savannah
Then took pills to suppress our periods,
Flattened our boobs into body armor.
Restricting one need fed another.
While our friends back home
Shaved their curls for a night out,
We brought razors on deployment
And kept things trim,
Genuinely concerned about what the medics would say
If they had to cut our pants off.
We wrote death letters too,
Patriotism tinged with self-abandonment.
We
We are so few
Freaks until we met each other.
Amy Sexauer is a poet and author of Poppies published by Dead Reckoning Collective, from which this poem was taken. She is a West Point graduate who spent nine years on active duty in Military Police and Psychological Operations units. She is currently in the Army Reserves. You can listen to our Savage Wonder episode with her here.
Follow her here.
Learn more about Veterans Repertory Theater here.