menarche
it has taken me so long to become the moon. it has taken me so long after
you became the moon to become the moon that i thought i would die
from waiting. it has made you full of red—the red of babies & blood. i
ask, teach me how to fill myself and by fill myself i mean insert a cotton
tampon. you’ve always understood the beautiful terrifying things before
me & i hate you for this. i imagine it didn’t hurt the first time you filled
yourself, even though you tell me don’t worry, it hurts the first time. i imagine
it will hurt every time: my body is not made to bend. but sister, our bodies
have twisted into new configurations, and you do not know me. what i still
remember of you—you are holy. even when you bleed you’re beautiful.
when i bleed, i am a wild animal: all teeth.
Room of Light
“Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.”
—from tao te ching
You open a door & appear
in a field of light: lampposts rise,
great stalks of bamboo bright
as stars as spears of lightning
illuminating white static
around you.
Your hands cannot catch
the rays—everything is blurred, washed heavy
something you saw in passing
from lives once lived.
In the strangeness you can’t speak,
but know, intuitively, you are somewhere safe,
flushed warm as your mother’s belly:
the inaccessible buried
inside you—the secret is nothing
& the great warmth of knowledge
shines into your eyes
& fills you.
Admission
for my sister
She begins slowly,
maintains the routine
of pantry, bedroom, bathroom
so quietly
I don’t notice her skin slipping from
the fasting wind.
Soon she eats nothing
but sugar & oxygen,
absorbs the little life they offer
and I do not notice—pretend not to notice
the water & wind churning
wildly in her guts—a storm
promoted to present danger,
its great arms reaching out
towards home.
Megan Willoughby is a writerperson from Los Angeles. She edits at tNY.Press. Read her words at: theEEEL, Electric Cereal, Stone Highway Review, and on the 3rd page of Google search. She half-heartedly blogs at flusteredpoet.tumblr.com.