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Lauren E Kraft Apr 2014
I started wearing a heart rate monitor
All the time
I got it originally to figure out my threshold on the bike
I haven’t gotten around to doing that yet
When I first put it on
I guess it hadn’t made proper contact
I looked down at the watch
It blipped a tiny radiating pulse like a submarine Doppler
Searching for a beat
My friend pulled my shirt up licked the sensor and stuck it back to the place just beneath my breast
I laughed
There it was

Now when I walk
I look at my wrist obsessively
**** Tracy waiting for a secret message

I am thirty now
And I worry, nightly; I will be too old too soon
To be a mother
I worry that I am a child

I interpreted an ultrasound
For a deaf person
A communication with the beyond
The doctor searched for the right spot
Made contact
And I heard the muffled, galloping sound
Of someone trying to survive underwater
I opened and closed my fist to show her the rhythm of a pulse

I have no god
And I don’t want one
But what I do want is a sign
That I am alright

Tonight I sit on top of a closed toilet and watch water fill the bath
The best part of the day
A reentry to the womb
Right before I get in
I remember myself
I unhook the monitor from my ribs
And get in
Submerged, I listen for the galloping
But hear only neighbors
Shifting furniture downstairs

When I’m done I can’t help the compulsion
To put it back on
And when I do I get the message
Lauren E Kraft Apr 2014
Her ****** is a gift she’ll give you
After a week
A month if you’re very unlucky
You’ll marvel
If you’re bold
Or you’ll miss it because you’re shy
But eventually
You’ll have a half hour
To stare at her

And before she becomes mundane
Before her **** walking away from you
To the bathroom or the kitchen
Becomes wallpaper

Take a good look at her
And remember the paper-white of her
And remember that she fascinated you
With the novelty of beginning

And how once her **** walking away
Was the reason why you everything
Lauren E Kraft Jul 2014
Brad Pitt picks his nose and eats it

Natalie Portman cries in the tub over trivial things

President Obama has sleep apnea

And you are afraid of the dark

— The End —