Sex During Surgery
written by: Henna Johansdotter
I made a joke
of pretending to be injured
when actually I was only transparent
the light shining through me
revealing the unforgiving truth;
“you can be better”
but with his latex-clad hands wriggling against my uterine wall
it is so hard to stay anesthetized
all I can do is hold my breath
and pray for release
the source of my problem was an overactive imagination
he swore to remove carefully
“Everything must be kept sterile” he said
while using a rusty pair of pliers
to extract the last pieces of woman from me
It shouldn’t have been me
I cry into the piercing light of the fluorescent
I only wished to be reborn as a more complex being
freed from the prison of fertility and lust
this kind of love
that will leave you naked and ripped open
in a cheap motel bed at 5 in the morning
His are hands that take and take
and I’m the giver that produces
the weeping mother of aborted dreams
I don’t want to sleep with a meat cleaver tucked in between my thighs
and wake up just in time for the slaughter
Am I too alive for you,
my aseptic lover?
Will you need me sedated,
a twitching sack of flesh underneath your blackened fingers?
It doesn’t matter that I’m dreaming of someone else
Blood gushing from mutilated genitals,
my eyes go dim as you pull the mask over my nose
(sooner or later I’ll have to breathe)
- Dogs of Heaven - March 24, 2020
- Papercut - February 21, 2020
- Nebula - September 17, 2019
