Inside the sun’s belly, my daughter converted hydrogen into helium when she inhaled my nutrients (kernels of corn that flossed my teeth for me, molten lava cake that warmed my gullet, soggy pickles I’ll never ingest again). She floated around, like a slimy pink balloon, producing static against my uterus lining, until my pubic hair stood at attention. It saluted you as you brushed your teeth and I peed happily… 

Just before you left me, there was always dried piss on the toilet seat. You didn’t lift it anymore. You gagged whenever I cooked scrambled eggs: told me you saw our daughter in the sizzling pan. Told me you saw her reflected in my eyes. And you hated me for it. 

Now some nights, in my dreams, I still stumble upon us painting her room that day. We’re like bees preparing their hive for the new queen. Honey drooling down the walls and from our lips. Like a ghost, I drift towards our buzzing bodies and watch you paint a sunny side up smile on my round belly with your sticky fingers. 

Thrashing in my sweat-soaked bed, I’m ready to wake up. I try to leave our apartment in a dusty corner of my brain, before the moon of that bitter night casts a blue regurgitation on the half splattered yellow walls.

But I’m paralyzed in my past body: reliving the way the cold toilet seat felt on my naked cheeks, how I spent the night scratching her blood and mine into the drying paint, the way your face contorted when I said She’s all over the bathroom floor and I fetched the mop, how the yolk of my dead egg squished in the crevices between my bony toes and

the way your veiny eyeballs called me a monster, so I fantasized about nibbling on them. I always imagined they would melt like caviar on my tongue.