Feeding the Body

When I can’t gain weight, the doctors reassure me that the baby
will take what she needs from me. Will suck the very calcium out

of my bones, if necessary. She won’t starve.
They let my question float, unanswered, in the air:

But what about me? I didn’t know, then, that mothers
weren’t supposed to worry about themselves.

I put myself on a secret anti-diet, reversing every rule I’d read
as a teen in Cosmo magazines: Always eat dessert first.

Drink only empty calories, not water. Never mistake hunger
for thirst. I have no cravings, only aversions. I eat

rice and beans for two weeks straight when my body
rejects every other food. I tell my doctors about my dizzy spells,

the cold sweats and quickening heart, even at rest.
The air I can’t drag down to my lungs fast enough

for their hungry whine and whistle. “Odd,” they say. “Your baby’s
heart sounds fine”, they say. “See you in a month,” they say.

Frankenstein’s monster, eight-feet tall, whose viscera and bones
were gathered from the slaughter and charnel houses,

lived on nothing but nuts and berries. Did his body, too,
always hunger? My stomach should distend like a blood-sated tick,

but my baby curls inward, instead of pushing out. She rearranges
my organs as she grows hers, shoving my stomach up under

my ribs, with no room to expand. The first thing I do
before getting out of bed is eat. The last thing I do

before going to sleep is eat. I eat every two hours when I’m awake.
I’m so tired of eating. At my eight-month appointment, I step onto the scale.

The nurse and doctor both sigh. “You finally
gained a little weight,” they say. “We were so worried about you.”

*

Cam McGlynn is a writer and scientific researcher from Frederick, Maryland. Ever since she was trapped in a deflating moonbounce as a child, she’s been deeply suspicious of street fairs. Her work has appeared in Whale Road Review, Rattle, The Shore, and ONE ART, among others.