Janet Topping

Tag: reclaiming voice

  • The Permission Slip That Started Everything

    I pressed the pen against the permission slip for the sex education class and wrote her name, my hand moving with the practiced confidence of someone who had memorized every curve and illegible scrawl. The “B” curved exactly as hers did, wide and looping, before dissolving into the messy chaos that passed for the rest…

  • Unmasking the Illusion of Obedience

    Unmasking the Illusion of Obedience

    The tower rose like a hymn from the earth—layer upon layer of carved stone, every arch a promise of safety, every balcony a whispered blessing. But step back two paces and the blessing curdles. There at the tower’s feet coils an unbroken wall of basalt, as if the tower were a prized relic to be…