---

To Do List

Take on the load of the burdened. Picture cutting the baby’s cord with your teeth & cremate the fetus in your eyeballs for the rest of the ultrasound examination. Observe the next woman’s follicles (after separating ovaries from bowel) & figure out why her (breast) ducts are dilated with no baby in sight. Find a tampon to plug your body’s slush & get back to work. Rinse & repeat until you get home. Then, consume what you were denied. Ache. Yearn. Rage. Dream about swallowing a dozen gold nuggets. Imagine your legs propped up on a fleeced ottoman, eating pomegranates. Listen to opera. Eat ice cream & promise yourself you’ll swear off sugar now. Remold your sense of self. Balk at lobotomy scenes on TV. Self-destruct. Feed into chaos. Inject yourself with pretty lies. Crave mind-bending devotion. Think of latching onto the bodily warmth of another. Bite your lips. Fold your innocence (& greed). Tuck them between your breasts. Make palm-sized paper effigies of the ones you love. Dish your pain & shame onto a ceramic plate. Sing a requiem. Swallow with a slender hand around your throat & hope it tastes delicious. Read Anaïs Nin. Let damnation & salvation infiltrate your bones. Shed the symptoms of being human & when dawn arrives again, unfurl and sweep stale regret off the floor.

---

 

Kataru Yahya is a Ghanaian writer. She is the author of the novel Home Is a Silhouette. Her poetry can be found in Ta Adesa and elsewhere. You can find her on social media at @kforkataru.