Lalaie Ameeriar
FALLOPIAN, SINGULAR
after the rupture
I walked unbalanced for weeks—
a ghost limb tugging at the left.
Inside me, a room had been emptied.
Not swept. not sealed.
Just... gone.
The technician didn’t speak.
The wand moved over my belly.
She looked. then again.
“Can you see anything?” I asked.
She blinked. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I held the stapled note
like maybe it could unfold—
into a diagram. or a map.
One fallopian tube.
One baby.
Discarded.
Medical waste, they said.
At the hospital,
a nurse asked: “Was it a wanted pregnancy?”
I nodded.
My face burned.
My body curled inward,
trying to hold
what was already leaving.
Later—home, in bed—
hollow but still swollen,
as if my body hadn’t heard
what the surgeon said.
It kept preparing.
It kept hoping.
It kept waiting.
They took the tube.
I walked home crooked,
the world tilted.
I could hear the emptiness inside me.
I could feel it echo.
Some mornings, still—
if I stand up too fast—
I lean.
I brace
for a weight
that isn’t there.
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