No Children

I bleed for the first time in two years. I tell everyone. Someone close to me says,  wow, it’s like
you’re a real woman again. Amenorrhea means  no children, or  children if you’re lucky. The
Latin translates to  no moon. I am a moonless woman. The Pollock painting does not depict me.
Often, I think of the infertile wife & the husband who leaves her. How nobody wants to admit
they’ve been left. But I’m a real woman now. Someone will keep me. Someone will look past the
other things. The insomnia. The compulsion to pick holes in freshly healed skin. I can cook, too.
I can clean. I can read to kids at night, even if they aren’t mine.

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Lauren Milici is a Florida native who writes poetry, teaches English, and is currently getting her MFA in Creative Writing somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia. When she isn’t crafting sad poems about sex, she’s either writing or shouting into the void about film, TV, and all things pop culture. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @motelsiren.