Rebirth

By Lucy Wang

Dec 09, 2025

Rebirth Floating in the aether of non existence A state of what you can only imagine as pure bliss No heaven. No hell Just quiet restfulness and eternal assurance That you are not trapped inside a bag of flesh One that will eventually collapse and fall apart Easier than a house of cards on a windy day When you peeked out of the birth canal You must have been terribly ugly Wrinkled and bruised Eyes bulging and puffing like a drowned man Meaty from yellow fat and blood filled tubes Ready to spill out any time now And it will, for you are now in a world of filth Your purple face and jaundiced liver They are just a prelude to what’s to come You gasp and sob and squeeze your eyes shut The bright lights must have been blinding Yet mere eyelids can not wipe away the agony From the nauseating beams that etch into your retinas Better get acquainted with this discomfort For after you tried and failed to suffocate yourself In your mother’s womb; Your first grand exit You will try again and again to soothe the scar The pangs radiating from your umbilicus Yet to no avail

So you hold your abdomen as you double over Squeezing chunks of flesh as the hurting continues Do you not realize? You have no choice in the matter So welcome. Stay a while. Make yourself comfortable For hell is real and you are heading that way Hell is real and it’s other people Hell is real and it’s you To know is to suffer Yet you can’t bear the burn in your head That comes from not knowing; the reason for being So take a few deep breaths and try to forget Fill your lungs to its greatest capacity Feel the carbon and ammonia enter you Ignore the metallic tinge on your tongue For when that day comes you can’t bargain with Hades So give your coin to the ferryman And don’t think about where you’ll end up Perhaps you’ll once again thrash and cry If you even have the strength left The last scream into the dead of night Before your bones give in

Lucy Wang is a third year illustration major currently minoring in Literature and Writing. They’ve spent most of my life living in the Bay Area, though has spent years living in other major cities such as Beijing and New York. Poems are some of their favorite ways to express myself, along with their love for the visual and performing arts.

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