food baby

that sickly feeling college break first meal with mom at a diner somewhere between campus and her place eat too much and enter third trimester you swear every part of you leaks your pits your mouth your breasts if you think hard enough about the food baby that eats at your stomach lining you feel him kicking at your gut run to the restroom and heave heave maybe you’ll shove him out the other end picturing a diagram of your vagina and your throat you swear your throat has more room why not birth from the top then that spoiled food baby wants to travel the entire length of you mouth to stomach to ass-end in one uninterrupted swim not like a drop like a tossed boulder into that mossy lake you swam in with family the tankini that tickled the top of your belly button a fish brushed past your foot and you screamed it took everything in you to keep swimming until you reached the shore and fell to your mom’s lap and she scolded you for getting her paperback wet. it was the first time you felt like a woman in a world that shrank with each birthday. and on the next lake trip you padded your bikini cups with seaweed when the almost black water lapped at your neck and you plumped your fake breasts together to woo the carp your arms are sore from gripping the toilet in a hug you will give to your mother when she has a grandchild to congratulate you for food baby spoils curdles in the bowl like the stiff body of an electrocuted bird. 

there must be more vaginal room, you realize: the throat expands when utilized and the lake just keeps sealing your lips for you.

About the Author

Allison Hendershot, a junior Creative Writing major, hasn't written anything because the newest Pokémon game just came out, so consider this publication a small miracle. Read more of her work in Moonstone Arts Center's Young Writers Anthology, Loco Mag, and past Quiddity Issues.