The Problem with Self-Examination by Lauren Ebright

CW: Body issues

I worry which body part will defy me,

turn up bruised and sullen to remind me

of my troublesome ilk.

My great-grandmother ignored her lump until it was black.

Until it was an open wound that made itself known. A lifetime

of salt-rimmed secrets floating to the surface.

Or maybe she didn’t like to be touched.

I remain a bag of skin, tolerable and brilliant. If you look directly at the sun you risk blindness;

if you look directly at a problem you risk solving it. If my breasts were identifiable

then I would know what they look like. I would embrace them, set out an offering,

travel their ridges with my nail-bitten hands.

My great-grandmother had a daughter who became my mother’s mother.

She was beautiful and sad like the memory of youth. Her cervix killed her.

I move gently, so as not to feel an answer.

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Lauren Ebright is a writer living and forgetting to breathe in the Pacific Northwest. Her poetry has appeared in Permafrost and Anti-Heroin Chic, among others. Follow her procrastination on Twitter @lauren_ebright.