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Katie Mihalek is a writer living in Somerville, MA. She has earned a M.S. in Medical Sciences from Boston University and is an MFA Candidate at Emerson College in Creative Writing. She has received support from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and the Southampton Writers Conference, and is the current Editor-in-Chief for Redivider. Her work can be found in Sheila-Na-Gig, Spectrum, Mistake House Magazine, Beyond Words, and others. Her chapbook, Aurora Uteralis, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2024.

Rules of Design

Katie Mihalek

My fingers push into my belly.
My little pouch springs back,
flexible, and there, two jagged lines
like surgical cuts in my pliable flesh.
I am contorted on the floor, cold tile
pressed into cellulite, neck strained
in butterfly fold, my back screaming
with tension: What is this?
I never asked to be a map of red
lines, red skin, flushed face. Who
gave permission for cracks to twist
skin into curves, point and say, look
at this growth, this rise and
fall, these waves that ripple, squish,
balloon. But they break their rules:
these marks are straight up over my stomach,
harsh, burning, red, one, two, off center.
I look for a third, for a line of symmetry,
and am almost disappointed that I
don’t burst at the seams.

 — Katie Mihalek

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