Endo Metra
Her doctor
spoke words that meant
her body: cervix, uterus.
All she hears: inflexible, useless.
As she dresses she pauses,
presses her fingertips into her abdomen
tries to feel and picture each organ,
the web of her uterus and ovaries suspended.
She imagines her ovaries like a nest of spider’s eggs
ivory cotton down, with thin blue veins.
Fallopian tubes as threaded bridges
to her uterus’ perforated silk.
Who would live in that deep darkness?
What could grow in that hollow
scarred tissue?
Thinks about her own spinnerets
their catatonic state –
She wonders if her eggs are marred,
eggs fragile as webs
torn easily from doorways.
Feels herself yanked from her frame
lacking a dragline.
Have all these delicate parts hardened in me?
Hard. Immovable.
What could possibly form in
something so desolate?
Cul-de-Sac
The sky is navy hues with a thousand stars pulsing bright prayers. You want to pluck them from the night and taste them, let them melt on your tongue. You close your eyes on the hood of that blue car and see violet quivering behind your eyes; cold biting, goose pimples pop pop pop. Bare skin rash red raw, you are panting and passion pink bubble gum pops tongue twisting teeth tight. Fingers gripping fiberglass, floating closer to that frozen sky gasping, choking on these angry angled stars you glare at them as if they professed promises they never meant to keep.
All the while the boy is taking.
Laurel Perez grew up in Oregon where she lived in Portland. She later moved to North Dakota to earn a Bachelor’s and Master’s in English. She is a poet, instructor, and master crafter and likes to spend her time knitting, writing, and generally crafting. Today, Perez lives in Illinois with her her husband and is currently working towards a PhD in English studies while teaching Composition.
–Art by Dia Takácsová
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