Real Girls Have Pneumothoraces
Lily Beaumont
My mother says, “You just want to disappear,”
as though it weren’t totally reasonable—
my preference for taller men,
men who make me feel
small. That easy, female melting,
so seductive on certain types of film,
but not the X-ray–not the dark,
unhinged space through which
my lung modestly retires
within my chest. Breathing asks
too much of feminine delicacy, even
now, even with the air stapled into me
for a decade plus, even when I am sneaky
and imagine I’m replacing myself with vapor, cell
by cell, inhale by inhale. What I mean is,
even though I can breathe, and I’m grateful and
whatever, it’s an embarrassment,
a reminder, a minor horror. Is it really
asking so much to want out of here,
when health just makes me think
about its opposite and fear and fear and
fear, and when I’ve heard about nymphs
who leave their knotted bark behind
and wander carelessly? I want
to be delicate and indelicate as water:
so formless that no guy I sleep with can
point to the scars abruptly punctuating my back
(where the bikini strap hits, my surgeon said),
my underarm, and the rib beneath my breast
and crack a joke about how fragile
I am because I’m already so far
away.
Lily Beaumont’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including Prolit, Star 82 Review, Wrongdoing, The Shore, and Phantom Kangaroo. She has an MA in English from Brandeis University and currently lives in Central Texas, where she works as a curriculum/study guide developer and editor.