rebirth - Bria Corcuera
poetry ☆
poetry ☆
Rebirth is constriction. That suffocating pressure that alters the shape of your skull, presses you against yourself and forces you down a path you can not see. Panicked words that you can not hear, will not hear, are muffled and surround you, barking instructions they do not realize you would process if only you contained the capacity. You are clawing,
crawling,
gnashing through a wall that cannot be broken and leads to nowhere, covered in the sticky lessons of the past that once left you nourished.
Rebirth is violence, as you tear open the one who was meant to carry you to the future, to some unknown version of you and your life that is heralded as better and beautiful and meant to be lived. They scream and cry and their voice towers over those who claim to help you, and, somehow, this is their job. It is a noble mission to sacrifice your body and turn a piece of you into the entirety of someone else; it is a good deed to help create this withering mess that will soon lie hapless on a sterile table. You hate yourself every day for destroying that ungrudging self who will lay hollow beside you but, still, you are not done.
Rebirth is a violation. Unfamiliar hands grab at your being and slip and let go and grab even harder and pull you further along your path; how can they fit their hands here, how can they make their way through this impossibly tight space and force you along in a journey that you unknowingly woke up on and were told to walk? It is with resentment that you break your way free into this empty air that is bright,
too bright,
and choke on a fluid that once kept you alive. Hands poke at you and prod at you and reach inside to wrench the past from your unwilling throat.
Rebirth is death, as the one who pushed you lies bleeding and the memories you cherished become a mushy carcass abandoned on the floor. You can not see and your world has changed and yet you are congratulated on the end of a pilgrimage you did not embark on, but were instead forced into. A tiny,
crying,
pathetic mass: now you have dignity, now you are new.
Bria Corcuera (they/she) is a creative born and raised in Southern California. They work in higher education providing accommodations for students with disabilities and creating community-based events for their school. Outside of campus, she can be found hanging out (typically eating) with family, making art with friends, and getting far too excited at the aquarium. An excessive overthinker, Bria has turned to writing as a means of organizing and conveying their innermost thoughts and to linocut as a meditative practice to finally quiet down their brain. Find them and their elaborate narcissistic Instagram stories @Briaacore, and on Tiktok @Briaacore whenever they finally decide to post.
