“Police gathered around a bathroom inside of High Point High School Wednesday morning.” - ABC7
She lay
with her knees spread wide
on the dirty girl’s bathroom floor,
fingernails scraping gritty tiles.
The organism’s head
was like mawing jaws
ripping through her body,
little alien.
Uterus hardening,
the creature sliced through
her vagina.
It came out a bruised
pennyroyal purple,
coated sticky
in white wax.
His skin flaked
into the grout.
Bloated baby cheeks
like his mother’s
tear-puffed eyes.
She placed him
in a cradle
of crumpled paper towels,
a bundle of blankets stained
amniotic yellow.
She dabbed at the blood
Between her thighs as
the bell rang
for fourth period.
Elisabeth Pease is a 19-year-old poet currently studying Drama and English with a concentration in Creative Writing at Washington University in St. Louis. She is originally from Los Angeles, and is a designated California Arts Scholar. In her free time, Elisabeth enjoys fostering kittens, swimming in cold lakes, and baking.