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When My Doctor Sliced Me Open and Filled My Femur With Sea Coral

Bianca Grace
I was lower
than the bottom of the ocean
when my disfigurement destructed
 
         the skin above your tiny, ten-year-old femur.
         You were certain the doctor
         was a monstrous iceberg
 
                  when he birthed
                  and stitched
                  me up. I am the scar
 
                         that stopped you from wearing
                         a swimsuit
                         at the beach
 
                                    because I carved ugly
                                    into your veins
                                    and arteries. Mini shorts at school were forbidden
 
                                                 in case a student jeered louder
                                                 than a dolphin if I crept
                                                 beneath your hem. So careless. Your family would exhibit 
 
                                                   me, prouder than a gold medal won
                                                   at a surfing competition
                                                   and it would make you feel like vomiting over every person
 
                                                          who made you go into another room
                                                          to look at me because you did not have the power
                                                          to say no.
 
But one day you found a pearl.
Beneath me lived the Great Barrier Reef.
The murky bone
 
devastated
by the belligerent tumor
transformed into mysterious jagged sea coral
 
from the ocean’s shallow waters.
You envisaged
creatures 
 
swimming inside your femur
working
to create a home for their offspring.
 
I was no longer the tsunami 
of hate
you were certain
 
would ruin your life.
You were free from the storm
you had no choice to weather.

Bianca Grace is a poet and student from Australia. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic and Selcouth Station.
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