Coping Mechanism.

a poem –

is a sickly, shuddering thing that sits heavily in the bottom of my gut;

festering in my womb.

it pulls at the back of my eyelids

murmuring incomprehensibly against the bones of my pelvis.

i stiffen with contractions and feel the teeth of the poem scrape

against the inside of my flesh;

(a bruised landscape)

its limbs have grown large and press into my ribs.

the discomfort is blackening my lips

and the poem shifts.

my body is a fireplace of burning embers

and i feel full of poems, anticipating birth.

they beat their little fists against my gorged belly 

desperate for escape.