The Lobotomy of Jane Doe

by Genesis Ochoa

… C, D 

they’ve asked me to recite the alphabet. 

although, i’m sure it would be hard with 

the 6-inch divide between the needle and mallet 

and the teary-eyed wasteland they’ve deemed 

to be cataclysmic to a fault. 

E, F, G, H 

for i am a woman in shoes much too small 

to be of my own. yet they’ll find any reason 

to drill into my skull and scrape around 

until they find something that clicks. 

I, J, … M 

because it’s always jane and almost never john. 

and if it was john well it must have been a blip. 

for they too must have been pushed under the  

weight of an ice pick, pulling nerve endings apart. 

M… D, F…, Y. 

and perhaps maybe when they exhume my body, 

they’ll tear me apart and find the incoherence of a design 

masquerading as a solution to cut my threads loose 

and i’ll be put on display for prying eyes to see. 

until i am born again, in shoes much too big to fit. 

in a world that begs me to speak but never scream, 

never cry unless i am to be looked down upon. 

by the same eyes that pray for me to screech that 

alphabet once more. 

A, B …