Your Neighborhood Witch Is Back Open For Business

Greetings,

It’s me, the witch who used to cure the village--until you tried to burn me at the stake and I ran away to the woods, the place all witches go. Things have been going well. The moon and the trees have been kind to me, which is more than I can say for the men who reviled me for being a woman in the business of healthcare.

A crow perched itself upon my cauldron for our usual Thursday visit and told me that the House of Representatives just passed a bill so monstrous that I’ve decided to reopen the practice in my secluded hut, where no one will hear you scream about how your government is failing you. Yes, I know. In the end, you’ll probably try to burn me again, but when duty calls, a witch must dust the cobwebs off her pickled toads and get back to work.

A witch can do a great many things. She can ride a broomstick. She can cast spells. She can speak to cats, which is highly useful given that cats often function as a witch’s aid, similar to what you call a “nurse.” But what a witch cannot do is sit idly by while 24 million people lose their healthcare.

I’ve been doing this shit a long time. I know a hundred ways to tincture, and I’ve got the best eye of newt in the game. I know what you’re thinking. “Witch, there’s no way your medicine is safe.” To that, I say, bitch, my medicine is so good it made the men in charge come for me. They chased me for helping women choose if and when they wanted to have children, the same way they’re chasing Planned Parenthood now. They feared me so much they ran me out of business, took up my work themselves and called themselves “doctors,” because they didn’t like that my work meant they couldn’t control me… or you.

Besides, I’m pretty much your only option right now.

The good news is my premiums are low. I ask only for seeds for my garden and a treat for my cat. That’s better than paying thousands of dollars out of pocket because your baby was breech and you chose a C-section over the risk of losing your life and the life of your child. I’m not here to put people into debt, because I have a soul (trapped in a jar that sits on my windowsill).

I, too, have been called an abomination. I fear being denied coverage because of my pre-existing conditions of “warts,” “broom burn” and “sexual assault.” Are you surprised? Men denied my humanity, so they weren’t really hung up on my bodily autonomy. Luckily, I have these lovely little mushrooms I’m willing to share. They don’t really solve the problem, but they make it real fun to gaze upon a fern.

In my witchy practice, no health conditions will be pre-existing because the human condition is pre-existing. The Earth has been here long before us, and if we can prevent Rex Tillerson from getting his way, it will be here long after us. Yes, this is exactly the kind of beguiling, humanistic thought you can expect to get as part of my chimney-side manner.

As a gift from me to you, I will send you home with some cleansing sage sticks. God knows you’re going to need them to deal with four more years of this shit. I hope that one day, the GOP will have a heart…of calf that I cursed and prepared for their lunch. Until then, I’ll be out here in the woods, dancing naked under the full moon, and providing well-visits to anyone who wanders ten paces past the brook and takes a right at the haunted willow tree.

Blessed be.

Mary Kate Miller (@MKnotfunny) is a writer and comedian living in Chicago, IL. Her work has been published by The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, and lots of other websites that you read.