Syncing Up

 

My best friend and I used to get 

our periods the same time every month.

We would compare dreams, trying to decide

whose blood-fueled, hormone-dusted vision

was the craziest, the most fucked-up 

adolescent fairytale. 

​

I dreamed of an alien shivering and 

wriggling under the skin 

of my flat, fourteen-year-old stomach,

Trapped in a spaceship like a silver spoon,

I birthed a thing with an empty eye socket,

gaping between spidery wrinkles. 

​

My friend dreamed of getting pregnant

with a dust swallowing boyfriend. 

Trapped in an Alabama like the papers,

where an abortion was impossible, 

she became a teen mom drop-out, outcast

in streets with band-aid colored clouds.

 

We argued for hours, each of us sure we had won, sure the nightmare was worthy of cinema,

pitching our dreams like storyboards for

an audience of cash-fat producers. 

​

That night, I lay under the covers, 

waiting and waiting for sleep to come,

while my stomach turned and swelled

like an eyeball was rolling inside it, 

seeing nothing but darkness.