Subcutaneous Masectomy: A Poem

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WORDS BY RILEY JONES.

Your voice echoes

through the crack in the ceiling.

I pull at its sides

like teeth splitting skin.

Blood on my tongue,

I’m a carnivore and you’re

flesh.

It’s a puddle,

There’s drip-dropping rain.

You splash through

with military boots

and the midnight weapon

strapped to your waist.

There’s an inevitability to the destruction.

It runs in veins,

with the certainty of life.

Change is upon me,

a wicked heartbeat inside.

Its organs are slow,

sluggish,

tick

tick

tock

away.

You carve it out,

a scalpel and a fork.

It sits on a plate and you ask,

‘Is this what you wanted?’

My chest aches with the weight,

the lack thereof.

Bandages piece me together but there are wounds underneath that ripple my skin, held together by string and tied up in a neat little bow. It’s like a gift, one that I paid for on my own.

‘Yes,’ I tell you.

The lady in the waiting room says it’s

a big change.

You agree with her,

because of course you do.

‘Yes,’ I tell her.

And the world keeps turning.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This article has been reuploaded and was originally published in 2023.