The title conjures up more phallic language as pen and penis are close in spelling. Additionally, the speaker is analogizing there need to write down their feelings to holding in their urine. She “barged into the men’s [bathroom], and felt stares burning,” because “they do it [urinate] different.” Gender mandates that bodily functions carried out by men and women are insanely different. But, “inside the pipes a babble sound,” ends the piece signifying that urination is common and only gender as a construct really separates …show more content…
The meaning here though is if we had seen the tit pics of famous authors we could know who they truly were at heart. The speaker’s frustration at setting, “down the meaning of the tit,” would be aided by having historical evidence. Blurring the usual association of tit to female breast, the speaker compares her breasts to Walt Whitman’s. Questioning, “This is not something Emily Dickinson would have done. Or is it,” the speaker reverses the parental titles of these poets in terms of American poetry. In her opinion, the reclamation of Whitman as homosexual makes his poetic voice feminine despite him being a man. To follow through with the metaphor, “Dickinson for instance the father of American poetry,” has a beard, conveying that Dickinson could ascend to the power status of men because her poetry is used as an example of strong women. Through the messy language it becomes clear that all the redefining and reclamation of these two figures only persists the outdated ideas of gender