Sarah Jordan

Funeral For a Shape 

it was wrong to consume this morning. currently: 
bloodstains on my clothing, an intentional piece of glass
on my windowsill. this is what it means to be quiet. at night
I sleep in an old sweater from my grandmother but I
don't ever recall her wearing it. there are gaps in the stitches.
I don't ever want to be a real person so I
make a gap between my thighs (it lets the pressure out)

instead of a wedding veil I have a shower, water
fall in the shape to resemble commitment. I'm at the bottom
sometimes I only sleep in the shower, being careful not to drown
careful not to be found waterlogged. imagine: 
a pruned dead body to move, better stock up on drano
and place your bets. how many gallons of boiling water
will it take to flush the pipes after I've passed—
it's the gaps in memory leading up to this point that matter. 

the sweater is green, it talks to the blue glass, asks it why
being a triangle is better than being whatever shape the sweater is
the triangle glass edges are kind and cutthroat and don't reply.
my skin and hair are gathering in corners in the bathroom
commenting on the absence of bones, gaps in attendance, and
how strange the romance is between the sweater and glass
my body fills in the space where the blood doesn't reach, there's
nothing that can stop be from being a human but my thighs might 

release me—divide my ribs and watch pennies fall out
tiny donations made in lieu of (but I would have preferred) flowers

A few years ago I had one of my wisdom teeth pulled during a routine dentist visit. Afterwards my dentist joked that he could clean it up for me to take home as a souvenir and even though my mouth was numb and I had bloody spit dripping on my chin I firmly told him that since it came out of my body I absolutely wanted to keep it. And that's how I went home one day with a wad of gauze in my cheek and my wisdom tooth in a small paper envelope. I'm keeping it around for good luck although so far it doesn't appear to be working. 

Sarah Jordan currently divides her time between New York and Scotland, where she is a postgraduate student studying women, writing, and gender. Her work has or will appear in Entropy Magazine, Rhino, and others. She occasionally tweets @sajordan01.