Founded in the fall of 1991, Laurel Moon is Brandeis' oldest, national literary publication. Each issue we publish features original work from undergraduate students.
A test tube birthed my womanhood
Pills produced from cleanly dirt and daisy chains
And bouquets from corner stores.
I bleed the color orange,
10mg clots come out—
Calcite-hard like children’s chalk
White-labeled: congrats!
Ten days until the lab they put in my womb
Dings like my apartment’s broken oven—
Manufactured, mass-produced ladyfingers;
Not enough flour, they’ll never rise.
Medic deluge, board the ark of womanhood,
of hormone-hood.
Take one tablet of forbidden fruit by mouth every day;
Warning, it says, monitor symptoms:
eve, temptress, mother-woman.
Kenzie Packer (she/her) is a New York-based writer currently studying Dramatic Writing, English Literature, and Creative Writing. She is enchanted by words and the ways in which a few of them strung together can transform minds, spur emotions, and awaken the unseen parts of ourselves.