Cause and Effect

by Kelsey Bryan-Zwick

What is this invisible force that hits

so powerful in my life it bends my spine

leaves me doubled over into a permanent

squiggle—hard as any bus or bullet? 

My misfortune is not knowing what

to change or not to change. Scoliosis is

An idiopathic disorder most prevalent

in adolescent girls, teenagers captive to

our anatomies, teens so often belittled

growing up in a culture steeped in

misogyny, assault, and rape. Maybe we

are just trying to make ourselves smaller

uglier in a way, hoping nobody will notice

we are here. Maybe we just needed

at one point, to be held up, like we really

really mattered. 

Or maybe it’s our own internal gravity

weighing us down, asking us to fly

to the moon, all the way past Mars,

beyond everything we’ve ever been told

asking us to escape.

* * * * *

Kelsey Bryan-Zwick is a Spanish/English speaking poet from Long Beach, California.  Disabled with scoliosis from a young age, her poems often focus on trauma, giving heart to the antiseptic language of hospital intake forms.  She is the author of Watermarked (Sadie Girl Press) and founder of the micro-press BindYourOwnBooks.  Kelsey is a Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net nominee, and has had poems accepted by Spillway, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Trailer Park Quarterly, Redshift, Lummox, and Right Hand Pointing.  Moon Tide Press’ Poet of the Month for May 2020, find her at www.kelseybryanzwick.wixsite.com/poetry and on Instagram @theexquisitepoet.