inconclusiveI don't know what makes a home but I know what makes a place stop being one // I know that
my parents gave me a name that means motherly which was fitting because // I dreamed not about my own aspirations but about how I would instill a sense of ambition in my own children someday I know my body became ready for life when I was nine // uterus deciding that absences & specialists would be my new normal // continuous blood so thick that it required hormones mid- day from the elementary school office // everyone side-eyeing birth control usage in someone so young I know the surgeries began only after I became an adult, my bladder issues coupled with the gynecological failures // after enough stitches, enough procedures, enough sunk time, I chose a supracervical hysterectomy // I chose to render my own body inhospitable // I chose to lead my future away from solace at the age of 23 I know my right ovary wouldn't behave so it was cut out soon after & // my left ovary survived for one more year before it twisted around itself twice // torsion, a pulsating black balloon headed for rupture inside a body that wouldn't have taken too kindly to sepsis // inside a body that’s never taken too kindly to me I know that people mean well when they suggest adoption, not understanding that I’ll always be too sick to become who I need to be // adoption at this point is just a word that finds me useless // a concept that held hope in me until I proved myself unable // I don't know how to tell my heart it will never find what it set out for when it decided to discover itself I know now that when my friend told me you love like a mother loves, what he really meant was you lost a piece of yourself & will never relearn what it means to be whole |
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Rachel Tanner is an Alabamian writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bad Pony, Longleaf Review, Spy Kids Review, and elsewhere. She tweets @rickit.
