Mississippi Appendectomies

Had to use 8 words

It was a violence—-
feral, primal, animalistic—
the way they reached into the center of us
to the very marrow of our bones
and hollowed us out,
the flint-edged scalpel slashing and cutting,
their hands ever steady, devoid of tremor or quiver
absent conscience or regret

It was a betrayal—
vicious and intentional—
the way they kept us ignorant of this inhumanity,
of this violation of sacred oath
against our dark skin;
and the hinge that we clung to
that made us women
ripped from us and tossed away

It was a loss—
devastating, calamitous, disastrous—
the way the sorrow followed us wherever we went;
Empty vessels that we were,
sterile and barren;
we watched our dreams for children unravel
as we hurled screams at the sky
and scratched at dirt stained auburn with the blood of our tears



Note: The "Mississippi Appendectomy" was the slang term for the forced, involuntary, or coerced sterilization of Black women in the American South—particularly in Mississippi—during the 20th century, reaching its peak between the 1920s and the 1970s.