Family Planning for the Aftermath
By Callie Treadway
Sunday morning we
sip styrofoam cups of coffee,
scroll through headlines,
babble about modern tragedy.
It seeps through our teeth,
like coughed up blood.
Our disease: social,
inherited.
We laugh at historical trends,
wonder if world wars
skip a generation
like twins
or your freckles,
worry about tomorrow,
and the next day,
and the next.
If there’s any tenderness left in the world
when the new ones nose their way through
the fallout of my womb,
let them get only
the best parts of me,
the worst parts of you.
Callie Treadway (she/her) is a writer and artist from rural Arkansas. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of South Florida and currently works at University of Oregon. Her work centers representations of mental illness, LGBTQIA+, and survival of women in the South.