DISABLED DELICIOUS | UNTITLED (OBGYN) | THE TREES HAVE GAINED WEIGHT
Three Poems by Aimee Lowenstern
DISABLED DELICIOUS
A berry burst (before my birth) inside my brain. Now, I am a frozen dessert. How my ice-creamy countenance clenches candied and candidly, cerebral palsily, how my insides feel like biting down into the cold. “Be Jello,” says my PT (Popsicle Thawer) (Pastry Torturer) (Physical Therapist), trying to roll out my dough. And I picture pig’s skin, powdered and poured into my skin, and cow bones, mixed with hot water and my bones, and sugar, sugar white as a femur, with blood or cherry flavour, and through the transparent and tempting treat, I see my white chocolate skeleton, my ambrosial viscera, my heart a maraschino dazzling and decadent in the stomach of my chest. Oh ergotherapists, oh orthopaedic entrepreneurs, come cut a slice of some scrumptious someone! Stay, surgeons and specialists, masseuses craving mousses, nearby neuroscientists or not near, I travel to you in a to-go box! Taste the way I follow instructions, I mean the recipe! Have you ever seen a sweetie like me? I giggle, I jiggle, I shine!
UNTITLED (OBGYN)
Schrödinger’s cat’s claws are kept in my ovaries. Laying down on this unmarked paper as the doctor inserts her prosthetic paw into my birth canal, I am both fertile and infertile, just as I always was. Let’s open the box, slang for vulva. Tonight I will look at the moon and think it looks like an ultrasound, but I don’t know what else I will think.
THE TREES HAVE GAINED WEIGHT
1. The trees have gained weight over the holidays, soft white fat. I have hit the scale like a blizzard, inches creeping up in the weather reports. I bought new snow pants, crisp as a January morning, to leave on the floor of my boyfriend’s apartment. 2. After prescribing a small flurry of pale pills, my psychiatrist motions for me to take off my jacket, to take off my stomach, to take appetite suppressants. She says it will slacken even the wintry-hunger, the death-want. She says I will eat skyflakes, grow thin and clear-minded as an icicle. And my number’s the right number to whittle down. 3. I think I feast the way birds feast in the freezing forest: With at least a little will to live. I look to the fresh powder, waiting for it to melt, waiting to be Narcissus again. Everywhere has the colourlessness of sun, everywhere is blinding. It has been the new year for 31 days, and I still haven’t found a resolution.
Author Bio
Aimee Lowenstern (she/her) is a twenty seven year old poet living in Nevada. She has cerebral palsy, a pulse, and a pen. Her work can be found in several literary journals, including Fifth Wheel Press and MEMEZINE.
Editor’s Note
These three poems pack a punch! I love them because they address difficult topics of disability, medical examinations, and treatment interventions with a visceral touch… and a sprinkle of dark humour. There’s no better way to describe the rollercoaster of being human.
I hope you enjoyed reading Aimee’s incredible poems. If you did, share this post or consider supporting our magazine by upgrading your subscription so we can keep publishing the stuff that makes us truly feel something while supporting authors in the process.
Love,
Alexandra x
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