‘I Am a Gun’
— Reneé Bibby
Chloe Bell’s poem ‘I Am a Gun,’ isn’t about a bruise, it’s about reclaiming the body. Bell doesn’t detail the specifics of how the narrator came to be hurt; she leaves it wide enough for it to be any woman, any day, whose body has been marked by violence. But, that violence doesn’t break her, it’s a catalyst, as Bell’s unnamed narrator transmutes the mark into a power to protect, to avenge, and return firepower. Like many women in the world, it’s likely she will encounter again men who want to break and hurt and control, but for this one woman, at least, these violent men will hold no dominion over her—the woman who is a gun, a woman we root for, a woman who has reclaimed what is hers with the righteousness of the wronged and newly powerful. A woman other women, like me, can aim to be.