Medea tells La Llorona to Dry Her Eyes

When the child’s mouth spouts the father’s insults
from lips mirrored on your face,
drown the mirror.

When a father feeds the child lies as bread,
break bread with him and serve him
the fruit of his loins.

When wives are fields to be plowed until barren
and then salted to preserve a straight line, men call
this ironing of curves terra Salica, their prime law.

When birthing is their lone crowning,
how else can women revolt but by opening
and showing men their teeth.

**

White Rat, Disrupted Gas Lines, and the Pleasure Center of the Brain

I dream in corridors.

Each right turn leads to a reward,
a piece of cheese or fruit,
a hard pellet,
or the pleasure receptor in my brain
pedal pushed to maximum speed,
colors flashing neon joy,
prisms in this prison.

Each dead end
results in a negative consequence:
electric shocks jolting my limbs
into a twitchy dance,
the singe of fur,
the flashbulb punishment,
noises to knife my ears,
needles burning in my veins.

This is my life.

Then the bright lights shut down
as my cage opened.
The hands did not come for days.
My food bowl and water bottle emptied.
I stepped out.
Nothing happened.
I turned round and round
in a maze of taller walls and cold floors.
I circled for food, but nothing judged my turns.

Red and orange lights
began painting hot dances on the walls.
Thick gray blankets
then squeezed my throat,
so I ran back to the maze I knew.
There the wire currents worked,
but the map was imprinted on my feet.
I found the lever that pushed strawberries
into my head.
I push over and over.
Melons burst behind my eyes.
Cheese swirls along my spine.

I feel the orange heat come closer.
I push the lever.
The maze walls become the dancing lights.
Like the darkest cheese.
I push the lever.
I smell fur burning and watch a pink toe melt.
I push the lever.
I am the orange dancing.
I push the lever.
I am sweet.
I push

***

LeAnne Hunt (she/her) grew up in the Midwest and now lives in Orange County, California. She is a regular at the Two Idiots Peddling Poetry reading at the Ugly Mug in Orange and at the Poetry Lab workshop in Long Beach. She has poems published in Black Napkin Press, Lullaby of Teeth: An Anthology of Southern California Poets, and Cultural Weekly. She publishes a blog of writing prompts at leannehunt.com. The chapbook she co-wrote with Kristin Beckley, The Abecedarian of Lab Accidents: Killing Your Coworkers With Chemistry, is available in the ebook box set Strange Impulses.