Perception Spring 2023

toast
Melina Iavarone
Fried. The flat-iron has run over these locks far too many times to
count. In an effort to look like a pretty girl tonight, I let the heat frizzle
each strand–and I wonder why I have dead ends…I’m the murderer!
I feel a boiling-hot stinging sensation on my knuckle. Fingers caught
between the plates again. Beauty is pain. My bedroom air reeks of
burnt brunette. I choke on my own heartbeat, worried the smoke
will wake the alarm on the popcorn ceiling. I imagine the inhabitants
of my apartment complex evacuating, all because of my makeover.
I let the house fire scent fill my lungs, hold my breath, and mumble
a prayer for a still-sleeping smoke alarm. I’m cold. The beauty tool
might be a weapon to my fingertips but it keeps me from shivering.
I’m reminded that my shampoo has been recalled for hair loss
allegations and I swear I can feel a hollowness in each follicle. Back to
mumbling and praying. I think my mind is playing tricks on me.
Acupuncture
Alaina Triantafilledes
The lady put a needle in my sternum
and pressed on my wrist.
To toughen up my heart’s bouncer, she said,
and thicken my pericardium.
I am a thing with thorns pointed inward, I replied.
A porcupine inside out.
I was full of winter. She aimed the heat
lamp at my feet, placed a sheet over me
Like I was pronounced dead—legs elevated, a heating pad
Beneath my back. When I said I can’t stop crying
and bleeding, she said she had an herb. She lit mugwort
on my sternum, below my navel, beside my knee.
Point when it gets too hot, she said. It shouldn’t hurt.
She used up all her moxa trying to purge
the toxins from my heart. I let it burn
and keep burning. When the heat finally permeated
my chest, the lady cheered. I should’ve been scorched,
but I was just a bit warm.
Then I was on my stomach, releasing grief
through the needles that lined my spine.
The sheet covered everything but my back
like a reptile basking. We didn’t know
what I was mourning for or if I was more Earth
or Metal or Water. Only that I was all clogged up.
I told her my left hip had been electric since the night
a butterfly bush cushioned my fall
And I limped from house to house
dressed as the Queen of Hearts.
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