Yearly Checkup

By Chelsea Jackson
I’m pretty sure the table is the island 
rolled in from the kitchen, 
its metal cold on my back.

They don’t put me under, but unzip me
forehead to pelvis and down 
the inner seam of each thigh.

Peering in they sigh and get to work.
They decoupage magazine cutouts onto my brain,
make my hands itch

with a green rash and an urge to spend.
Program my legs and voice to wobble
if I wander too far from the pack.

They stretch my stomach 
and shrink my heart.
Inject insecticides into my uterus.

Already their faces
evaporate from my memory
as I pencil in my next appointment.

About the author

Chelsea Jackson’s poetry asks hard questions, interrogates inherited social narratives, and explores what it means to be human. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Drew University, is published in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Passengers Journal, and the Platform Review, and was a finalist in the 2020 Driftwood Press In-House Poetry Contest. Originally from Southeastern, Virginia, she now lives in Philadelphia with her partner, grumpy cat, and cuddly pit bull. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @sea_c_j.

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Degradation Kink

By Veronica Beatrice Walton