i cannot keep these things inside of me
by Elissa Lash
Menopause. My woolly mouth is also sour, tannic. My stomach is filled with mud water, like the slip used in a pottery studio. My body is transforming. Again.
When I was pregnant with my son, I vomited water, then bile. I couldn’t walk in a straight line.
This happens sometimes, said the midwife.
I became so dehydrated that my urine looked like ale. The doctors called me to the hospital to get IV fluids.
Onto the stiff sheets and crackling rubber mattress of the hospital, I collapsed.
The IV will make you feel better, said a resident.
It did not.
You must eat, said the nurse as she slapped a tray with a white bread turkey sandwich onto the little table by the bed. She was so frightening and I was so hungry. I ate several bites of the cardboard & sawdust sandwich that smelled of rotting meat. Then I threw it up as beige chunks into the hospital toilet.
You didn’t chew enough, the nurse said.
On release from the hospital, reassurances. The baby would get what the baby needed.
What about me? I knew it was selfish to think of myself. Mothers are supposed to sacrifice their bodies to this higher purpose. If I made it through this pregnancy and birth, the selfish part of myself might be redeemed.
What could you eat? My husband asked often with great caring. He loves to eat and had been looking forward to midnight snacks of pickles and ice cream or any strange thing my heart might desire.
You have coffee breath, I said, gagging. I could smell everything that ever happened.
I do? I only had coffee this morning.
One night he made the mistake of cooking broccoli and I had to shut myself in the bathroom.
What I Maybe Could Hold Down:
1. Apple pie, the way my mother made it. For the crust, she used real butter and ice water and a sprinkle of vodka. Inside, crisp, tart apples with so much lemon and cinnamon, baked until soft but never mushy.
2. Brown rice. Cooked soft like gruel and chewed a thousand times.
3. Coca Cola from a can.
4. Thai chicken soup, sour with lime. Simmered in coconut milk.
5. Lemon popsicles.
6. Whole milk cottage cheese.
What I Threw Up:
1. Hot chocolate with marshmallows. W 12th Street sidewalk.
2. Dry Cheerios. Toilet stall. Boston Logan airport. Terminal C.
3. Lemon popsicle. Subway tracks. A Train. 181st Street.
4. Black bean burrito. Elevator. Our coop. Overlook Terrace.
I used to make myself puke with a finger down my throat, during the brief bulimic part of my eating disorder.
What I Made Myself Puke:
1. Peanut butter.
2. Jelly beans.
3. Chicken curry.
4. Popcorn with fake butter.
Once I saw blood.
Second pregnancy, my daughter, again the nausea. Advanced maternal age is the problem the doctor said. No, I always do this, I told her.Sick at sea. My husband at the ready. You need an IV.
This time I didn’t stay at the hospital. I only sat for an hour with a needle in my arm. There was no nurse waking me in the night to tell me, The only way to make it go away is to terminate the pregnancy, you know that, right?
The Food and Liquid that Came In and Went Out:
1. Hawaiian Punch. Red and chemical.
2. Green apple. Hard and sour.
3. Salsa made with fresh jalapeño. Eaten with a spoon
4. Chocolate ice cream. The expensive creamy kinds.
All the pregnancy books say what I should and shouldn’t eat. But I break the rules.
The pregnancy books remind me of all the diet books. The foods, the amounts, and how they may be cooked.
I am familiar with the bland menus for women’s deprivation and transformation.
What Menopausal Women are Supposed to Eat:
One half cup of oatmeal
Foods that are orange like yams and squash and bell peppers, but not Cheetos.
Boiled chicken breast. Broiled salmon. No bigger than a deck of cards
Dark leafy greens.
Fibrous fruit but no banana, never banana.
Non- fat plain Greek yogurt.
Five unsalted almonds.
Legumes.
This morning I wake up nauseated. The world is burning. Last night I ate lentil soup. My husband jokes that lentils are the power fuel of menopausal women because I eat them so often. During my broken sleep I dreamed of a white haired woman in a shawl. She beckoned me down the hall. Are you my great grandmother? As I get closer, I see she is the actress, Dame Judy Dench. You’re a witch, she says. Be careful. The world is burning. But I thought she said word. The word is burning. Which word?
I gag on my first sip of coffee but keep drinking it.
I cannot keep these things inside of me.
Elissa Lash's prose has been in The Rumpus, CRAFT Literary, Bust Magazine, The Forge, and other publications. Her work has won the 2024 Craft Literary essay contest, been nominated for Best of the Net, a Pushcart Prize and listed as Notable by Best American Essays 2025. She was just awarded a Creative Individual grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council for her memoir in progress about sex work, motherhood, and menopause. It was a finalist for the Kenyon Review's Developmental Editing Fellowship. She lives in Massachusetts with her partner and children.