No Longer
I am rails no longer.
I have hips now,
and breasts that stick out past my ribs,
though the alchemy of metabolism
makes them protrude, too.
I am no longer whittled,
though my fingers still get cold,
but there is something to me now, some substance.
I have content—more than just skin and bones.
Meat on my bones, I signify something,
am able to create.
That this body could now produce a child scares me,
but it’s less frightening than passing out,
than the jut of hips and wristbone and no ass.
And, now, when he holds me,
I know it’s not just to cling to my body,
but to grasp onto what’s inside.
And the starved girl, the one within me,
weeps, for she is filled.
___________________________________________________
An alumna of Barnard College, Marissa Mazek is currently a Creative Writing MFA candidate at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. Her work has appeared in The Emma Press Anthology of Homesickness and Exile, Watershed Review, and The Rampallian, among others, and has received an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train’s December 2013 Fiction Open.
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