Alina Zollfrank

Alina Zollfrank dreams trilingually in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize and recently appeared in Wordgathering, Pulse Voices, Heimat Review, SAND, Sierra Nevada Review, and others. She is a grateful recipient of the 2024 Washington Artist Trust Grant and committed disability advocate.

Easy read of the poems in the images above:

Unmentionable

The thing is

it hurts (period)

The thing is

it might hurt more (period)

The thing is

it’s messy

and I don’t like

messes (period)

I’ve

stacked

layer

upon

layer

to safeguard (period)

Still, it wants its way (period)

Ibuprofen doesn’t make

a dent (period) Same for prescription

pain meds, hot packs, Mayan

massage, pelvic PT (period)

The truth, these days it turns against me

more than not (period) I envision

the once-precious vessel all

rickety, lumpy, livid now and speak

the truth (period) I tell her, some days

I need to stay put and rest

while I ponder what’s next (period)

Maybe light a candle

for myself, for all female

organs turned liability (period)

In all honesty.