Content Warning: Illness and medical trauma

Wabi-Sabi Sick

I draw people to me 

like magnets. Invisible signals, hidden 

wires. Puppets on strings.  

I meet them in QuestLabs, 

blood sucking into test tubes like juice 

out of a Capri Sun. 

They find me at doctors, in PT, 

at Starbucks. We overlap like reflections 

in fractured mirrors, some pieces fitting, 

some jagged and broken. I see myself 

in them – our visages warping, our cracks 

mended with gold. 

Makena Metz is an LA native, INFJ Aquarius who writes for the page, screen, and stage. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in English from Chapman University and is a proud member of DGA, ASCAP, WIA, Maestra, and the SCL. Makena’s work has been published with Wordgathering, PearTree Press, The Clockhouse Review, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Strange Horizons, The Fantastic Other, and many others. Find her work on Coverfly, New Play Exchange, or Chillsubs and follow her @ makenametz on social media, and check out makenametz.com