The Garden and the Gag—Both Are God

She was never too much. She was just never meant to choose.

There’s a lie she’s been living.

That if she wants to be taken seriously,
she has to pick.

Softness or strength.
Bread or boundaries.
Cardigans or leather.
The garden or the gag.

She’s been told there’s only room for one.
That being both makes her chaotic.
Unclear.
Untrustworthy.

But what she’s really being asked to do
is amputate the parts of herself that don’t fit into curated power.

The parts that leak.
That linger.
That take too long to explain in boardrooms or bios.

This morning, I was on the patio before the sun.
The sky still dark.
The grass damp and indifferent.
I was wrapped in a cardigan, one hand around a chipped coffee mug,
the other around a book I’ve read a dozen times—
the myth of Inanna’s descent.

There’s something about reading about the underworld
while the world above is still asleep.

It makes you feel like you’re part of something older
than your ambition.

Tonight, I’ll slip into a ribbed black bodycon dress.
Leather straps.
Heels that click like exclamation points.
I’ll wear my lips like an invitation
and my gaze like a threat.

I’ll walk into a room and let every woman know,
without a word,
that there’s no part of her I can’t hold.

I used to think one version of me was the “real” one.

The barefoot one. The baking one. The one who cries over a line of poetry.
I thought the heels and the hunger were just for show.
A costume. A shield. A performance.

Now I know they’re both real.

The woman who kneels in the garden
is the same woman who whispers in the dark.

She’s not performing.
She’s remembering.

She doesn’t need to choose.

She’s not here to pick between nurture and nakedness.
Between eroticism and intellect.
Between a voice that breaks and one that binds.

She’s here to be the woman
who can bake a pie and break a man’s pattern in the same breath.

She’s here to be God with her hands in the dirt
and her knees on the marble.

Because the garden and the gag
are both sacred.

Both stories.
Both spells.
Both are God.

And the moment she stops trying to decide
which version is more “on brand,”
is the moment she becomes
undeniable.

This isn’t the end. It’s the afterglow.
Let it linger.

Until her next remembering,
—Lois

Love Letter From the Underworld:

I said this out loud in my Telegram channel today.
It came out as a whisper and a spell.
If you want to hear the voice behind the words,
come join Love Letters From the Underground.
I’m there, cardigan and all.