To Be Emptied
The silence in the waiting room sits buzzing in the crook of your ears.
It will stay with you for years after this, after the pain in your abdomen ebbs away,
And your underwear is no longer stained with the dark Rorschach blood,
But in this moment, you hardly notice it.
Instead, you are thinking about your body — if it is still your body, if it will
Remain yours after this. This morning, you looked at your reflection, saw it lined
With blue, like a crayoned shadow of what you could have given, a phantom cradle
Stood beside you, your hands alone rocking it back and forth.
When your name is called, you are still. Somewhere inside you, something is dying,
And something else is being killed, it no longer matters which is which. Sixteen, and
All you have ever known about love is lying in a heap beside you, the cool graze
Of your fingers across your stomach, the slight swell that answers.
There will be moments in this life where you will stand somewhere holy and ask
The hollows in the air if it will ever leave you, the faint cries in your dreams that never
Seem to cease, the sudden twinge in your chest that sees you writhing crippled on the floor,
Still, when the next boy asks you if you ever want to be a mother, you almost say
You already are.
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