old flames

my heating pad is my longest relationship;

dating, for the disabled, is a futile exercise

she is blue, the kind of blue that could be a baby's blue but to you it feels different. it isn't the blue of the sky, or the blue of the sea, it's the blue of health insurance receipts, of physical therapy.

But, to me, the shade my heating pad evokes an altogether different color: the patches of mulberry and rose that occupy the space between the rolls of pale skin on my stomach and back, the wavy pattern of first degree

burns you don’t treat–

I press the raw skin against the heat

again to soothe the organs that ache again...

those organs don't ache anymore, they don't exist anymore, there will be no gender reveal or blue shoes anymore it's gone and you won't live on a cycle anymore, maybe that exercise bike will be wiped of dust, utilized for the sake of muscle growth, you hope–

My reproduction slain, and even though I look at babies with disdain I feel an ache in my wombless body cavity. How else do I treat the new ache but with old flames? I lay my surgical scars on her heating coils once again, cauterizing unraveling futures.