c/w: attempted suicide, medical issues
The weekend following my surgery, a nurse stomped her foot on the metal break.
My first steps after the doctor carved a tumour out of my leg came as a monumental break.
My lecturer encouraged me to invest in a hobby. I did a poetry course and quit radiography, a
Bachelor of Peace hanging on the wall. What a rebel break!
I visited my dentist with a pulsating tooth. The nerve was a raging beast he examined with his
tools. His eyesight, worse than a root canal. Revoke his license, it was a dental break.
Cramps in my stomach, food tied in overhand knots, my life was shitting circles around my
head. I was curled over the toilet seat, relieved when I had a faecal break.
After my grandfather attempted suicide he said, I see it in your eyes, you hate me. The loudest
silence, the hostility higher than God. A feral break.
Bianca means white, Estelle means star. The white shooting star is my guiding light home,
no matter how scared I am of the dark. My body is my abode. Give yourself a gentle break.

Bianca Grace is a poet living in Australia. She is a reader for Sledgehammer Lit. Her work has appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, Selcouth Station, Ample Remains, The Daily Drunk Mag and is forthcoming in Capsule Stories and Sad Girl Review. She tweets from @Biancagrace031