Womanhood Is Body Horror

by Hannah Bambach

​

The child in my body grieves today. 

She has endured years of suffering at the hands of my evolution, 

taken by the arm and left to find a warm nest in my organs to reside in.

She has not seen the horrors of my world

but she sleeps against my stomach lining

torn from vomiting up all that I can while I am still allowed to.

 

The child in my body wonders why all I can do is scream.

She hopes that I have seen a spider or a rat,

and not that her house of tissue and pumping valves

is in the hands of someone not belonging to its system.

 

The child in my body urges me with tugs at my uterus to celebrate the smell of blood.

She wonders how much longer I will be able to sit over a toilet bowl

and insert a tampon before someone else will do it for me.

She remembers the feeling of blood dripping down her leg for the first time,

and asks if I am still afraid I will suffocate my eggs before they can be fertilized.

 

The child still living in my body wonders when I will cut her out.

She urges me to want a new body in my womb, to pry her from my ribcage 

and make room for the daughters and sons 

the people around me are hungry to watch me have.

As she grows around my organs, she learns that the innocence in my stomach 

will be the only child to stay in my body that is wanted there.