by Valeria Eden

so soon from now,
my womb will wither
and turn to ash inside me,
my beauty and worth
right alongside it.
my body, a graveyard
of missed opportunity
and my mother’s dreams.
i will be purposeless,
wandering empty-headed
and godless, like
childless women tend to do.
i have so very little time.
unfortunately, for my mother,
i will not spend this remaining time
chasing after a rich, older man
who can provide for me,
or obsessing over the wrinkles
of my smile lines, and no,
i will also not take this
tacky-cow-ring, also known
as a septum piercing,
out of my nose. instead,
i might take up bird watching.
immerse myself in the language
of warbles and trills and chirping.
i might even make a hummingbird
feeder out of a helmet and sit very still
in my backyard so that when my
uterus inevitably explodes from lack
of use, effectively killing me,
the last thing i see is the rapid blur
of bright, tiny wings; probably the
closest to an angel i will ever get.

Valeria Eden is a writer, editor, and crybaby. Her work has appeared in Variant Literature, Wasteland Review, and Eunoia Review, and is forthcoming in Arcana Poetry Press. She is the author of Tender Teeth (Jack Wild Publishing) and loves to write about the things that haunt her. She has three dogs, two therapists, one boyfriend, and her favorite color is green.