A Sharp Curettage
I once welcomed the wasteland. Wandering across the salted crust of dry earth, I called out until it came. Embodied, naked and barren under the slow scorch of the steady sun, I laid there until I was numb. I laid there until nothing else mattered anymore aside from the smell of my own burnt skin. Then one day, I heard a whisper, like the faint sound of the wind as it echoes through the hollows of a cave. When I cried out to follow, my body awakened to the soft caress of lotus petals against my skin, and I no longer wanted the wasteland where I had been. I opened my mouth to protest, but my voice was made only of the flies that carried the sweet smell of putridity on their wings as they glistened through the air. When they laid my body down on the cold metal table, a black sludge emerged. Trailing vapors of steam, it oozed across the examination floor engulfing those powdery petals like they were pieces of tissue paper. The next morning, I woke up empty, and I would never be numb again.
Sonia Beauchamp is a poet and healer who resides on the North Shore of Oahu. Her work has most recently appeared in Screen Door Review and Thirteen Myna Birds. When she’s not writing, you might find her surrounded by feral chickens or spinning fire in the moonlight. Find out more at soniakb.com.
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