Tell you what, you think you can outwit the change? You’re only kiddin’ yourself. Go on, take them little beige pills, filled with estrogen, and those baby blues cause the estrogen will give you cancer if you don’t balance with the pro-ges-ter-oni. Musta been a man invented that because the whole damn point of menopause is being done with all that messiness.
You think you can outwit the change? Not have body lightning skewer you to your sheets with sweat all night? Keep you moist only where you wanna be, but not everywhere else? Go on, keep tellin’ yourself that. Sure, sure, modern medicine! Diet! Exercise! Huh.
You think you can outwit the change and keep them jugs o’ yours perky and high? After nursing three babies, though hell, they are still on the tit, aren’t they? Always underfoot, hand out, fill my car with gas, need a hundred to make rent, lost my job at the fac’try. Been easier if you’d just kept them latched on, and then who’d have cared if you stayed perky. But no, you gotta buy another fancy bra and wire the girls up. Better off getting’ a hoist, I say.
You think if you outwit the change, that man g’on come back and take you to his bed and make you feel oh so petit mort? Ain’t that what they call it? You think not turnin’ into a sour ol’ raisin will take the place of his own despair, his beer belly dropping over his belt, his pants bagging below so no one can see he can’t get his own parts perky and high? Go ahead then honey, swallow more beige pills and wish they made them in fuchsia or crimson or chartreuse. Then something would actually look alive.
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First published in Adhoc Fiction's anthology Snow Crow: Bath Flash Fiction Volume Six, 2021.
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