five poems
by Nicole Zwolinski
WE ARE DOING IT WRONG
Sometimes I leave my house, and I see children with swan necks swooped not in hearts but towards screens and I think wow, we have broken us. When I was in my junior year of college, my sister had a cell phone and switched plans so asked if I would take on her old plan until it expired. I said sure because I drove an hour to campus and thought it would be nice for emergencies and promptly forgot it existed and was so embarrassed for the person in the lecture hall whose shrill cell phone screamed through the professor’s speech and gutted the quiet of listening. Later, I discovered it was her phone, now mine, no one had that number. But it was my sister, she had the number, calling me because she thought she passed me on highway 10. It was several years after that before I had a cell phone and again, it was not really my choice it was more of a convenience - my boyfriend thought it would be a good idea so he wouldn’t have to call my parents land line to speak with me. It was just a tool then. Do you remember what that was like? Do you remember the sweet song of silence sitting with your thoughts? Now neighbor kids storm through my house shouting questions they want answered to Alexa or Siri and I say, “we don’t do that here.” But I don’t even think they know what that means, they just want answers to random shit from disembodied voices. We’ve long fed computers our data thinking we were a needle in the haystack not wanting quid pro quo to stand in the way of satiating our desire for more – be it knowledge, random facts, or things…. Ooo the things that we could pile around us like we are building a buffer, to keep reality from seeping in, hidden behind the best _____ that money can buy.
TO THE POSTPARTUM WOMAN TRYING ON NEW CLOTHES IN HER PRE-BABY SIZE
After Kim Addonzio
If you ever clung to your six-week-old baby in a Target dressing room,
foolishly surrounded by crumpled joy in the form of retail therapy that
turned out to be hope laughing at you, I too have slumped on that bench.
Breastfeeding my baby in peace and puddled in the promise of bouncing
back while shoppers pushed their carts and mindlessly flung goods
off the shelves to grow their receipts like beanstalks.
If like a Gen Xer teetering on millennialism, you whipped out your
smart phone to capture your reflection of this raw moment of tears
gushing while you wished the breastmilk would flow like a flood
and exclusively feed your offspring and peel away the pounds
like your doctor and so many magazine articles promised, I too,
have stood on that scale waiting for change.
If you ever thought, you could open your closet and shake anorexia loose
from the skeletons and try it back on like your favorite sweater
that your college roommate stole, I too have run my hands over that darkness
like silk - remember that scientists discovered the physical intensity of pregnancy
is equal to running a 40-weeek marathon.
If you felt disappointment in the folds of your skin as you tried to stuff yourself
into jeans three sizes bigger, know that it’s ok to shed the expectations – it’s faster to lose than the bricks you built to incubate your babe. Buy the bigger jeans, wear clothes
you are comfortable in. You are still you, even if your body is not the same. Listen, you will be happy in your skin again.
THIS LITTLE GHOST
Nobody told me the havoc, and
agony a screaming uterus
could bestow upon a
woman.
Sure, I’d been ravaged
by monthly cramps
and collapsed on a futon
500 miles from home
calling my dad to cry
about the internal
tears that wept
painfully and bright
red. I bet nobody
prepared him for that
phone call either.
I learned to hold
the months alone
in a shaded corner
with heating pads
and Tylenol.
But there is a space
between knowing
and loss, that looks
like glory and beauty.
A brief, bloodless moment
where joy can be seen
in the distance –
furrowing under leaves
in October. The scarlet,
orange, and yellow ones.
Dry, but blank like
journals aching for cursive.
An echoing silence drips
from the stillest image.
And all the loneliness
in the world is bottled.
Packed in a to-go box
like leftovers from Applebees
when you ate out as an anorexic
in your twenties.
You bring that grief home and
slide it under your bed with your
used slippers that are gray with
dirt and time.
And then you wait… like a
hollow clock, but you still
keep hope in your heart
until your pelvis pulls
as if there are thumbs
tugging on your pubic
arch like a wishbone,
but the wish will
be curiously wadded up
in toilet paper and
stuffed under your sink
while you reckon
with heartbreak that will
never heal and never fade.
It’s a heartbreak that will
haunt you – this little ghost
that never lived,
never breathed,
never anything other than hope
and a ticker wrecked.
THE SHAME OF MIDDLE-AGE DIES WITH ME
I don’t want to be the woman
who laughs at your struggles.
Who says just you wait,
with glee rising to her eyes.
I don’t want the road to be harder for you,
just because it was rocky for me.
These women use to be the majority
and would eat suffering for lunch.
They measure your 27-inch waist
with their eyes and jealousy.
Envy pools at the edges of their lips
and they wipe it away with the cuffs
of their silk designer blouses
and scrape their cheek on tennis bracelets
gifted by their husbands out of obligation
and regret.
MY BEST FRIEND’S DAD VOLUNTEERED TO GIVE BREAST EXAMS
so we learned to curl our shoulders
in and cave our budding breasts
inside the cage of our ribs
and lock them inside
oversized sweatshirts
and tees.
We accepted our bodies
as the butt of jokes
that were owned by the lips
of boys and men.
Men who were merely
slightly older
boys.
We opened our wallets
and peeled out $12.87
to fill our parents’
cars with gas
and paid inside
the station
with babysitting cash.
While drinking the words
of Smashing Pumpkins
through paper cups of coffee
that was more candy
than coffee an indulgence
and bridge to adulthood -
thinking we knew
what rage was.
We knew to court our keys,
squeezed in our innocent hands
that had drummed
our dashboards to Peal Jam,
vintage Jeremy, our youth
spilling from the stereo
and we didn’t even know
we were still
so young.
Photo of Nicole Zwolinski
BIO: Nicole Zwolinski’s first full-length poetry collection, Motherhead is forthcoming by Finishing Line Press in August 2026. She has been published in the Feminine Collective, Firewords Quarterly, Alternate Routes, Effemera, the first Gather anthology and more. She was shortlisted for the Central Avenue Poetry prize and will have two poems featured in their 2026 anthology. You can find her on Instagram @nicolezwrites and links to all her other writing spaces there.