Katey Funderburgh

Luteal, Ovular, Follicular

When he kissed me, my mouth tasted like the steak I’d watched him
cut and eat. It bled onto a white dinner plate.
I disappeared

into the bathroom. I bled into a white Tampax

and thought of my father, who is a hunter, who told my mother,
who is me, that animals who are alone
are easier to kill.

In the fluorescent, the stitches of the dress I bought
with my own money at Forever 21
were silver moons

inside their chiffon, small like the fingers that made them.

I’ve seen pictures of women sitting hip to hip in factories,
sewing fabric that other women wove, sold to women who sell to women
who were all on that dinner date with me.

I purchased survival buried in their nail beds. Am I guilty or alive?

When he smiled, his mouth was a fingernail clipping, half of a half of a crescent. I’ve only
recently learned that there isn’t just one phase of each cycle.
It circles like the moon does. When she is round, so am I.

I am wearing what other women bleed for. I am bleeding inside
what other women bled to make— all this red
that isn’t death, but could be.

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Katey Funderburgh is a current undergraduate student at Regis University, studying English and Peace & Justice. She identifies as a bisexual woman. As a self-proclaimed poet, her work explores feminism, nature, belonging, love, and lineage. She has been published previously in the Red Cedar Review and Loophole magazine.