Issue 2: embodied
don’t look down!
Lena Mutafov
it’s high school, and everyone is jealous of my boobs.
i didn’t ask for this body, but my body is asking for it
when i wear a tank top to the party, and everyone can see
(MY) (TITS)
this is the year my nipples bloom, the irises so big,
why’d you wear that if you didn’t want everyone
to make eye contact? my friends say
every guy jerks off to tits like mine, but i know this already
from this basement floor and the body on top of me,
and i wonder if he has forgotten where his grip is,
with all that t u g g i n g.
i am quiet because i don’t yet know how to play
red light green light with my body
and this is saskatchewan so he is running all the yellows
just like we learned in school. his father said that
the ceiling would be popcorn. if a light were on, i wonder,
if he tugs hard enough, will my breasts unlatch from my chest
like a cork from a champagne bottle? like a kernel in the air-
popper? no. c’mon… you’re no fun.
and will the foam erupt from my ribs like a celebration?
will i join the popcorn on the ceiling, or will i break
through the plaster and fly into the past, back
before clothes stopped being comfortable,
before i stood in the mirror practicing how to hide
the alien parts of me, before a flat chest
made me feel so jealous i could burn up
the birth control pills prescribed at 14 until it is
2003: i’m 6 and shirtless in the living room
with the last lightness i remember
the house i grew up in had popcorn ceilings.
i think here does too, but it’s too
dark on the floor, with a body
turning me into a tomorrow topic.
the bathroom stall screams
my name in bright green, my last
semester spent a slut.
my graduation present is the breast reduction
surgeon telling me “they’re not that big.”
others have it worse, i’ve always been a little
bit dramatic. so i shut my mouth as i lie down
below him while the ceiling blurs above me.
when i wake up, everyone is mad at me
for regifting what god gave me, but i don’t believe
in anything above me but darkness. so i pretend
they are my tissue and my mouth is the scalpel
until they disappear. i should be happy
but that feeling doesn’t go away. the heavy
surgeon’s blade cut them down
small enough to confuse the eyes
of those who used to stare,
small enough i am no longer a slut
in the exact same tank top as before.
but i don’t own that shirt anymore. i think
i gave it away in exchange for mens xl
t-shirts that say dad life like that dream
under a darkened ceiling of being
light
and i could cut down my shirt size by two,
but i never do. surgeons blade cut my breasts
underside, but still not the fear of being
sexualized.
hey! i told you not to look!
My first happy poem brews in the blueberry kombucha
Lena mutafov
I want to write a happy poem about how I am
fermenting my own kombucha in glass bottles
I found at the thrift store, but it feels second hand,
and not in the thrifty 5-dollar find kind of way,
but like I have already donated my words to joy
to be sold for a profit or bought out by Walmart,
or gentrified by Value Village and now
I can’t afford to buy them back.
I want to be hopeful, but each backlit angle
looks like mold, and each air bubble caught
in my lungs feels like the spaces without you,
and I am caught by surprise by the absence
of sweetness. Last week, I forgot about my first
batch of kombucha and my kitchen overflowed
with blueberry bubbles. The floor turned purple,
and my feet lost themselves in a stream of why
do I really think I can do this?
I want to write a sweet poem but each bitter moment
reminds me that not all of our memories will be
worth savoring, so maybe I should write a savory poem.
But this SCOBY will not grow without sugar. It will shrivel,
so, no. I will write a human poem, because the sweet
days would not be so without the sour. Comparison
is not a thief but a reminder to revel in the brief
moments of sweetness, then to sit in the sour, and maybe
I should stop writing this poem and be human, with you.
But,
if I wrote a poem about carbonation
I’d do you a disservice if I didn’t try to finish it
by explaining the way I overflow against your hands,
excitement lurching into your touch, and exhale
against your cheek as you breathe me in, all
the way bubbles flow through my body
when you shake me up, up, up–ahhh.
The way I swallow the bacteria from our kiss
like it will cleanse my gut microbiome.
Like if I ferment the memory of you
in my belly long enough, it will grow
outwards from my core, blossoming
sideways, flowering into my extremities,
until each step is greeted by the tingle of your touch,
until each shiver down my spine is your fingers swaying,
until each stranger wears your sweet smile.
This is a happy poem. And I am happy
because even when the alcohol content is under 0.5%,
if you spill kombucha all over your kitchen floor,
let the SCOBY slip and slide against your skin
until you are soaked in the smell of us, I think you will
find you are bound to get at least a little bit buzzed.
Lena Mutafov (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist focusing on poetry, photography, comedy, and music. She believes humor and vulnerability can go hand in hand. Her poetry has been published in the 2022 Winter Issue of Sea and Cider Magazine, and she has featured for Victoria Poetry project in 2023. They can be found around Vancouver Island telling jokes in the basements and/or rafters of microbreweries, taking photos by the ocean, and writing poetry and songs.