✩༝̩̩̥͙ ༓༝̩̩̥͙ ⊹ 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝓊𝓃𝓌𝒶𝓃𝓉𝑒𝒹 𝓅𝓇𝑒𝑔𝓃𝒶𝓃𝒸𝓎 ⊹༝̩̩̥͙ ༓༝̩̩̥͙✩

celina reboyras

The fish markets in Chinatown have never smelled worse.
As I walk down the street, I’m holding my nose while simultaneously keeping my vomit down. 

My boyfriend is begging me to fly down from New York for the procedure.
“Please get it done here in Miami so I can take care of you afterwards.”

If I swallowed a marble, or ingested a coin –
A doctor would tell me that there is a foreign object inside of my body.

I don’t see how that’s any different from being pregnant.

A foreign object lodged in my uterus making me nauseous every minute of every day.
I have a fear of vomiting.
When I was 19, I held my best friend’s hair back in the bathroom of a sandwich shop on South Beach as she projectile vomited into the toilet. The entire time I looked up at the stained ceiling with tears rolling down my cheeks.
That was an act of love. 

I don’t love my fetus.
My fetus is an inconvenience, and New York City has inconvenienced me enough.
The Flo app sends me push notifications with updated images of what my fetus now looks like as I head toward week 6, week 7.
By week 8, it’s begun to look like a monster I once conjured up in a fever dream.
It continues to make a home inside of my body, but my body is already a home to me.  

It’s Thanksgiving and my boyfriend is driving us to his brother’s house for dinner.
He has a big happy family that I’m envious of – a mother, a grandmother, three sisters, one brother, two nephews, one niece, and several cousins.
I’m wearing a long modest skirt, with an oversized jacket to hide the fact that I’m the most bloated I’ve ever been.
Desperate to sell the role of the “I’m definitely not pregnant” girlfriend, I’m covered in clothing – ignoring the fact that it’s 86 degrees out.

My most recent google search:
“Affordable abortion clinics near me”
While I read the google reviews on abortion clinics, my boyfriend's 3 year old nephew begins tugging on my skirt for attention. 

The appointment is scheduled for tomorrow.
10am sharp. 

The clinic is located in Hialeah, FL – right off the freeway in a strip mall close to the airport.
It has white rusted window bars on the outside with a Dominican hair salon right next to it. 

Nothing could be more Miami than this.

The waiting room is painted an alarmingly bright shade of pink.
Kind of like the shade of pink you once showed to your mother at 9 years old, when you begged her to let you paint your bedroom and she reluctantly said yes.
Inside the waiting room are women and what appear to be their boyfriends.
One man keeps stepping outside to take phone calls. He’s yelling in a strong Cuban accent.
His pants are extremely tight.
I wonder if he knows that despite the courteous gesture to step outside for his phone calls, we can all hear every word.
Another man walks in and sits down in the last available chair in the waiting room. The woman who walks in with him is forced to lean her body up against the wall as she pulls out her phone looking agitated.
I think she should dump him. 

I stare at the analog clock mounted up on the bright pink wall as a 35 minute wait goes by.
The nurse yells out “Celina” and takes me back into a small room for blood work and routine questions. As she’s talking, I zone out on the wall in front of me that has a plethora of papers stapled to it.
A white piece of printer paper lists the updated abortion prices and underneath them in size 72 font it says
“NO CASHAPP ACCEPTED” 

Maybe they take Venmo instead?
I think Miami is a perfect place.

The nurse has me change into a gown and takes me to a much smaller waiting room.
I’m thankful this one is painted white.
My phone buzzes, a push notification – it’s time to take my daily BeReal photo.
I have the opportunity to do something hilarious right now. 

The doctor kindly opens the door, and tells me that it’s time.
Time to remove the foreign object that is taking over my body.
She escorts me into the procedure room where I lay down on a cold leather chair covered by a thin white sheet.
You know? The one that always crunches up underneath your thighs when you’re at the doctors getting a checkup? 

I place my feet in a set of steel stirrups even colder than the chair.
The anesthesiologist assures me that the procedure is quick, and everything is going to be okay when I wake up.
She asks me to count backwards from 10 –
10, 9, 8, 7, 6…

celina reboyras is a florida born, nyc based writer with a libra moon. she is also a sex worker, create mode author, very good friend, and the founding editor of doxy mag - a publication dedicated to advocating for the working girl. she has words featured in polyester zine and several other smaller publications. you can read more of her writing on her substack titled ‘forever online.’