By Violet Mitchell
Three days ago, I got an IUD.
It’s my insurance plan in case I’m a
bad parent. It’s the steel-walled bomb shelter
for the aftermath of the 2016
election. It’s a shield grafted into
the most sacred part of me, because I’m
scared of what it can do. The procedure
of metal and pin pricks and latex gloves
stretching my nervous skin, with the cold
table and legs hoisted up, and special
long scissors cutting string like fishing wire
is all I have in defense. IUDs
last for five to seven years. I just hope
that’s long enough to figure out what the
hell we’re going to do. I’m scared to have
a son—I don’t know how to tell him that
a fistfight isn’t the same as loving
the alphabet, that he can care as much
as he wants, that giving a damn isn’t
illegal. I want him to ask for dolls
and kitchen supplies for his birthday. I
want him to consume with contemplation,
I want him to feel so much that he cries
and isn’t afraid to tell me. But I know
when I ask if he started the fight, he’ll say:
No. But they only ever
see the second punch thrown.
Violet Mitchell is a Denver-based writer and artist. She is working toward a B.A.S. in Cognitive Literary Studies and a B.A. in Creative Writing, both from Regis University. Her work has been published in Loophole, Flourishing, Across the Canyon, and Who’s Who.
