Volume 3 Issue 1: Origins
Dead Girls Don't Deserve Lungs
Between 1450 and 1750, the European Witch Trials killed roughly 50,000 people, primarily women.
I: Drowning
guilty until proven dead.
the men callously
tie the pinky promise
of innocence to my feet,
right finger to left toe
​
my naked body is contorted
bound by premonition.
if I float, they say it’s the work
of the devil, my body eluded
of baptism baby secrets
and entrenched in
an accursed aura
​
but my limbs are twisted
behind my back and my chest
is heavy, the cavities of air
in my lungs rise to the surface
and bubble on the still lake.
​
they murmur at my writhing.
take a splintering pole to
shove my body down,
back arched, neck up
​
insides flooded and
accusations dry.
my head hits the rocks
convulsing body stills.
my last image is you, finally
satisfied with my innocence.
I, finally proven dead.
​
II: Burning
my body is stripped
kindling
already heated
ready to ignite
friction burn //frail skin//
against the wooden ladder
my lungs are dense //turning tight//
air concaved in
to make way for
the bags of gunpowder
how the explosives
long to last, make this
a prolonged pyre //raw and red//
for the pleasure of
the town to watch //blisters erupting over//
my body long after death.
that is how you like it, isn’t it? //my naked torso//
to be last person
to witness my bare body //popping with the embers//
finally dotted with dark marks
coughing and choking
on the dirtied rag //steaming blood//
forced down my throat
the waves of blurred smoke //boiling//
remind me of mama's
cooking, pig gutted on a
spit, roasting for our
enjoyment, my body
will be for your enjoyment.
as it falls limp,
i ask one final favor of //my blackened bones//
holy devils //are mine and mine alone//
let my scorched body
disintegrate, the softness
of my ashes unknown.
​
III: Hanging
little girl hides behind her hands
dear, i taught you reading and writing
let you prance around the dirty
floorboards and washed your dresses
with boiled water, wrung out and warm,
please,
I never would hurt you, baby
she cannot meet my eyes
her mother glares
the crowd grows I gulp
rope grazes my tender flesh
shudder to the bone
once I was desperate for the touch
of someone/thing to hold me
together; now this harsh embrace
of callus fibers and I’m falling
apart
how cruel it is to be denied the chance
to fly as I fall, I never got to know
the sky,
I might scream as the ground
gives out, let it ring through this town
like church bells, I swear
I know how they sound
let me. show you
​
– choke –
​
this world doesn’t like
​
​
– mad girls –
​
neck cinches
​
last blood and oxygen
brain
​
instead of screaming
​​
I
​​
will
​​
smile.
“Something in Doctor Walter Freeman wanted to be able to conquer people and take away who they were."
Doctor says this will make me better, ease my pain
and sadness, make the days of cleaning and cooking
go by faster, he says this will not hurt, help me live a
regular life. he takes little stickers and pastes them over
my cold body, feel the adhesive shoot needles into my
frail skin wires attached to my chest, explains the burning
plastic and rubber means it is working… some kind of
electricity, static and wild. Doctor takes two ice picks for
each eye socket and the nurse trembles as the mallet
leaves her hand onto his ungloved fingers. i insist nothing
is wrong, quiver as he sets the pointed metal next to me.
​
Sigrid Hjerten
was a modernist painter whose psychotic
nature and random mental issues caused
her to quit art and led to her divorce. She
.was lobotomized against her will and killed
​
Doctor, i beg, i am normal – this matted hair
and unruly body is not beyond hope; my
fingernails dirty and callous but still able to
wring the bedsheets; my head, it hurts, but
the screams are just in my dreams, i swear,
i am only– you are insane, mrs.
Doctor points the light at me, tilts my chin back.
i try to hold still like my husband always screams
at me to, but my body is thrashing as his looms
over mine, hold her steady. the curious and
sinister expression on his face blurs into fog, i
into black, into nothing.
​
Genevieve Pilarski
was sent to a mental hospital after frequent
disagreements with her parents. She was subjected
to the lobotomy without her consent, which left her
.mute and entirely incapable of functioning by herself
​​
Doctor tells me later that he
cracked my irises like runny
eggs, shoved the ice pick into
the eggshell-thin bone over
my eye. he said it dripped
onto the floor and i should clean
it up. i try to bend down, head
spinning, but my body is too
frail to mop the operating room
floor of my own insides. i do not
know control, do not know myself.
Doctor promises one day i will
remember who i am, but he does
not seem sure. I hear him talking
to a man with dangerously yearning
yet familiar eyes: I severed the
connection to the prefrontal cortex
in the frontal lobes of her brain. I put
her back together. I fixed her.
​
Rosemary Kennedy
was a rebellious teen with the occasional mood swings whose
father worried about her causing public embarrassment. while
conscious, Rosemary was told to recite the lord’s prayer as parts
of her brain were cut until she could no longer respond. Rosemary
left the operating table with the mental capacity of a toddler and
.remained in mental asylums until she died
Doctor holds up a cracked
mirror and i see a placid
girl staring at me. she has
my eyes, but they are dull,
black and purple and
yellow blooming flowers
over my eyes. flowers are
pretty. my face is pretty.
She will not speak out
anymore, she is docile
now. compliant. yes, you
are very welcome, keep
me updated on her status.
I predict a full recovery.
​​
The Women.
84% of lobotomy patients were women who were deemed feisty, opinionated,
mentally unstable. The procedures were terribly done and Freeman did not
have a medical license. one time, he killed a girl by posing for a picture and
dropping the orbitoclast in her brain. another time, he operated on and killed
an average,mentally well woman. and many times, for those who survived,
he ruined the rest of their lives.
​
Doctor takes
my hand to
lead me out.
i cannot walk.
the man, the
man says i
pretty look.
flowers. empty.
socket eyes.
man. insane.
sharp. black.
fog. eggs. body.
operate. i.
insane. girl.
quiet. head.
lifeless. wires. i
face. empty
man. sharp. frail.
head. body. oh.
Doctor.