This is not a pattern of flowers
Whenever I get migraines
I see geometric shapes,
same way all my hospital gowns
have triangles and squares.
When I squeeze shut my eyes
I see patterns that aren’t there,
crimson curtains backing black bugs who crawl
down paisley, down velvet, down flowers on walls.
Blue toile on china plates,
patterns on dresses,
ladybugs on Sunday skirts,
spaghetti patterns of high chair messes.
Patches repeated in Grandma’s quilt –
fish, roses, stars, and squares
to make you remember your guilt,
not going to Gadsden to see her more.
Patterns of hearts
on greeting cards in stores,
flowers, butterflies, polka dots, or lace,
pretty patterns that hit men like brick
structures in the face.
Patterns of Alençon lace on bridal gown sleeves,
red and yellow triangles on hospital gowns
with a tie in the back and buttoned up short sleeves,
a pattern the patient relies on to calm down
but whenever I see geometric shapes
march across a sea of blue,
it just reminds me
of all the curtains drawn
in all my chemo infusion rooms
and a pervading sense of doom
washes over me
like nausea waves I have to headache surf
like Greg Brady in Hawaii,
neon yellow and neon pink
squares behind my eyes,
geometric shapes
that aren’t really there
when I was at my desk job
and ate raw sushi
in the cafeteria for lunch
that made me vomit so much
my head pounded
and I called mom on the corporate phone,
asked her to pick me up and drive me home.
Patterns of Chantilly, sequins, beads,
Swarovski in a bridal shop
awaiting the virgin
saving herself for her husband,
patterns of silk sumptuous as cake.
Imagine the pattern of horror and shock
on the bridal shop clerk’s face
when my rapist
closed the back room door behind him,
her mouth formed in an O
and her eyes wide as teacup saucers
of bone china
and it was just him and her in the room, alone.
Did her eyes lock on a row of Swarovski crystals
she could’ve ripped from a gown,
stabbed his eyes with?
No, with her ballerina legs
she kicked,
whipped them round in a dancer’s pirouette,
the muscles and sinews of her legs
strong from rising on her toes,
strengthening her calf and thigh muscles.
Me, I’ve never known any ballet moves
so my blood vessels got busted,
a petechial pattern in my eyes
after he choked me,
blood on my eye whites.
My capillaries hemorrhaged,
pressure increased in my carotid vessel
like migraine headaches squeezing my forehead.
By: Lori Hamilton
Lori Lasseter Hamilton is a 55-year-old rape survivor, breast cancer survivor, and rectal cancer survivor. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from UAB in 1998, with a minor in English. Lori works as a medical records clerk in a Birmingham, Alabama, hospital. Her poems have appeared in SWWIM, Poetry Super Highway, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Steel Toe Review, Avant Appal(achia), Ghost City Review, Synkroniciti Magazine, Birmingham Arts Journal, Medical Literary Messenger, Global Poemic, and The Stray Branch.