By Dayna Troisi

Devoted Daddy Seeks Sexy Stump Woman

When a devotee messages me on OkCupid
I have the urge to lock my door,
as if he’s right outside.
(If you don’t know what devotees are,
they’re people who have a fetish
for disabled women, specifically amputees.)
I feel quite hypocritical
that I, the inclusive feminist,
the sexually-open-aspiring-sociologist,
the never-wanting-to-judge-politically-correct-liberal,
feel grossed out by a fetish.
The way I am
can make me feel violated sometimes.
But, wouldn’t it be nice
if the thing that makes me unbeautiful
could make me more beautiful to someone?
Wouldn’t it be nice to quit my minimum wage job,
video-chat all day with devotees
and make an Amazon Wishlist filled with designer pocketbooks?
Wouldn’t it be nice to be asked “what happened to your arm?”
out of admiration and not curiosity?
The things I would do for money (I am so scared to want.)
the things I would do behind the safety of a computer screen.
how easy it would be—

***

Amputee Camp

Missing limbs by birth, diagnosis, accident:
Are we special? Or is our suffering random and meaningless?
Are our existences accidents?
Did we deserve what we got?
Were we still drunk from our past lives on our way to the present,
      so drunk that we forgot a limb in the womb?
Did disease, not fate, carve us tripodal?
Why should I help you with funny little hints?
(You can get half price at the nail salon.)
You chose to drive drunk.
You chose to put your arm under that tire.
You chose to hand over your hand.
You chose to remove pieces of yourself and hide them in the ground.
You chose to make us question whether God really made us.

***

#ONEHANDEDPROBLEMS

“What happened to your arm?”
“I got hungry.”

“What happened to your arm?”
“Disease.  Be careful, it’s contagious.”
(Proceed to rub arm in their face.)

“What happened to your arm?”
“…what? OH…MY…GOD. WHERE IS IT?!?! IT WAS JUST HERE!”

I was walking my dog when a neighbor
grabbed my arm and
said a prayer to Jesus that a “normal” arm would grow.
“I hate to break it to you but I’m not a starfish. ”

When we’re asked to join hands
and the person on my left grabs my shoulder
instead of my stump,
I silently decide they suck.

Really, having one hand isn’t that hard–
until the DJ’s hype-man says, “put your fucking hands up!”

---

Dayna Troisi is a 23 year old poetry MFA student at Hofstra University, where she also teaches. She works as a research assistant for the Berkshire Conference, the largest gathering of women historians worldwide. Her work has been published in Jezebel, Broadly and elsewhere. Her main projects include spoken word poetry and personal essays that deal with feminism, disability, and sexuality. Look for her on Twitter: @daynatroisi

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