"Chey is thirteen, but she sighs like she’s in college and there’s another term paper due. It's the seventh period of the day and she’s tired. My class is the one where she is the most hungry and most irritable, and with one final huff, she sits..."

When a Lab Notebook is a Student’s Diary

"My mother holds a camcorder, crying,
You’re not right, this isn’t right
because I am struggling to pronounce the word
“these” and everyone has assumed I am hungry.
This is the third time my mother has offered me
cheddar sticks, and each time..."

Concerta, Fluoxetine, IUD

"If your wife asks you if you would still love her as an annelid, she is not asking you to bury her.
She is asking: What does it mean to love when your partner can offer you nothing? When gravity buries you in filth and apple cores litter..."

On Loving Your Wife The Worm

"My past is a carcass that the vultures love.
Each evening I wrestle instead of rest, 
wonder what you were like at twenty-seven, 
what serpent you fought with, 
and then I realize:
That is the year you gave birth to me."

Ouroboros Is A Woman

"Today the creator of the scrunchie has died,
and yet its polyester legacy lives on.
Scientists say that a single coral can keep
plastic in its stomach for several years
until its death, when zooxanthellae divorce 
because home is far too heated..."

World In Mourning 

"...Soon they will hold and make their own slides,
carve out my tissues, embrace their microscopes
and see all the pieces of me living in hopes
I give something back to them...."

For Dissection

"... Is this what it feels like to eat until truly full? I repeat the words back at him. I hope my partner listens closely. Freshly baked donuts. Chocolate milk. Biscuits and gravy. Green smoothie. I love you. I love you. I love you..."

Comfort Foods

"Unit Five is “Inner Child,” where forgiveness comes home
You buy stuffed animals, wear pink dresses, and go bare faced.
This is who you were meant to be, with the friends who love you.
You do not need your trauma to dictate whether you are whole."

Ashley Mezzano

Selected work