Juliet Cook

NOT A BABY DOLL

You and your prenatal baby dreams
in which I am the baby inside you
trying to rip myself out and get away.

Your fear of giving birth to something that will grow
and turn into its own self.

My extreme aversion to a life of being tied up
to a lineup of used baby toys
and someone else's clothes.

You act like giving birth is the only thing
certain parts of the body are good for.

Babies explode out my eye holes
in bad dreams. They rip out my own lips.
They replace my mouth with gurgling sounds.

Juliet Cook's poetry has appeared in a small multitude of magazines, including Arsenic Lobster, DIAGRAM, Diode, FLAPPERHOUSE, Menacing Hedge and Reality Beach. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, recently including POISONOUS BEAUTYSKULL LOLLIPOP (Grey Book Press, 2013), RED DEMOLITION (Shirt Pocket Press, 2014), a collaboration with Robert Cole called MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2015), and a collaboration with j/j hastain called Dive Back Down (Dancing Girl Press, 2015). Cook's first full-length poetry book, “Horrific Confection”, was published by BlazeVOX and her second full-length poetry book, "Malformed Confetti" is forthcoming from Crisis Chronicles Press. Find out more at www.JulietCook.weebly.com.