What Is a Diagnosis to a Demon by Shauna Barbosa

What Is a Diagnosis to a Demon

My Gods fast together. Nod in agreement

before relaying results. I stroll around on the verge

of an omg a gasp a wow a why don’t the doctors

jazz it up a bit. Say it’s a delayed overdose,

a you been out here looking for what’s been looking for you.

Turn the heat up. Say there’s something bigger waiting.

Say what doesn’t drown you makes you taller.

Say every new wound is still a regular old wound.

Say you’ll meet a man who’s going to love you

while your body grows with nothing in it.

Tell me he’ll have a voice deeper than demons.

Tell me he’ll be tall like stacked milk crates.

That way he could also be a bedframe.

Could carry decaying vinyl. Tell me

I could shoot a ball straight through him.

Don’t tell me a couple hours before morning break

that it’s just a cyst. A li’l fibroid. A change in diet,

a birth-control pill, and come back next year. My God,

just break me to blood, let me bleed to abandon

on a white couch, from the same cancers

obsessed with all my fat aunties from the South.

I was taught to bring food up to my lips.

For quality assurance, I want all the salt.

I want to drop with the beat.