my mom conceived me by accident and I learned from my first breath
how nothing ever goes to plan
you have to be flexible
in elementary school my lungs gummed themselves up at random
so I could know what it feels like to lose your breath
for all the wrong reasons
I learned how to appreciate the days
when this body worked perfectly
because they were scattered between days of
wheezing inhale and exhale
there is peace in a deep and quiet breathing
my first love spun a web worthy of a daytime soap opera
and I hung there helplessly tangled for months
the threads drawing out a lesson in how love is beautiful
but deadly to the unsuspecting butterfly hearts that land in it
my heart played merry go round with the kinds of guys
you don’t take home to mama
in their touch I discovered my own sweet solace
and how it tasted next to bitter bodies and hopeless hurts
I reached adulthood in the arms of the wrong kind of man
and knew it from the start but
I held him close anyway
his soul became the broken mirror that taught me
how to see my own cracks clearly
my womb refused to let a baby bloom
my body more funeral parlor than funhouse
but I realized how much my dreams had changed
when the old ones refused to take root in infertile soil
I called it my backhanded blessing and swallowed down the resentment
of having no choice in this
my entire life fit itself into the trunk of a car
and ran away to the coast
to get lost in the wilderness of small town America
I found new reasons to live
in the emptiness of starting over
these scars are a reminder
of the lessons that led me here to this
and I’m grateful for every mark
every phantom pain
Larissa Lee 