I walk through white hallways, all
\nleading to rooms where people are told
\nthey will live or die. The cysts in my breasts
\nmay or may not kill me, but I will learn them
\non the same screen that holds my daughter
\nin the uterine sac, her profile
\nhawkish. All things are imaginary
\nuntil we can touch them. I am touched
\noutside and in. The technician
\nruns a wand over my belly, my breasts.
\nIf not for the fetus that I mistaked
\nfor early menopause in my early forties,
\nI wouldn\u2019t have discovered the potential
\nfor threats that live just under the surface
\nof my skin at all times, lurking
\nas though a thousand clocks. Some women
\nsay fertility ticks inside the body,
\nbut I\u2019ve felt the end of time rise
\nsince I was a child and all was dark. Everywhere
\nthat the wand travels my body, pain
\nfollows. I swallow the urge to cry out.
\nI will wallow only when there is reason. In this room,
\nthe walls are dotted with butterflies. Real
\nbutterflies have a life span of one week.
\nMy daughter is trapped in the chrysalis
\ntransecting yesterday and tomorrow. I need her
\nto live longer than a week. How I will survive
\nafter she leaves me, I don\u2019t know. Barren,
\nperhaps. Stripped down to the teeth.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I walk through white hallways, all leading to rooms where people are told they will live or die. The cysts in my breasts may or may not kill me, but I will learn them on the same screen that holds my daughter in the uterine sac, her profile hawkish. All things are imaginary until we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[66],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-4in","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16516,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16515\/revisions\/16516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}