The Book of X
I look at her hands, their nails, which are short, unpainted, best for working lemon against wall. The post The Book of X appeared first on Guernica.
Illustration: Ansellia Kulikku.
I WAS BORN A KNOT LIKE MY MOTHER
and her mother before her. Picture three women with their torsos twisted like thick pieces of rope with a single hitch in the center.
The doctors had the same reaction each birth: They lifted our slick warped bodies into the air and stared, horrified.
All three of us wailed, strange new animals, our lineage gnarled, aching, hardened.
Outside, beyond the bright white lights of the hospital, the machine of the world kept grinding on, a metal mouth baring its teeth, a maw waiting to clench down on us.
“I’M NOT RELIGIOUS,
