Samantha Carroll

Issue Two

SEASICK

I vomit all over the floor

as my mother undoes my necklace.

It was the fountain made of white chocolate seashells.

I walk down the isle crying and

gripping each petal,

forgetting to let them drop.

Or maybe I try, but my hands are too

wet from nausea.

My husband finds me

tearing Anthropologie sweaters from the walk-in closet

I hope he doesn’t notice the scent of bile

enough to fill the house.

Huge house on the water.

The expressions of my second, third cousins are obscured

but I know they are smiling because

I have a job to do, finally.

The next time I smell porcelain

there’s a child inside me.

My second, third cousins have fallen ill

the kind you can’t forget

because it never subsides.

We toss ashes from a boat

while they coo at me

“Celebration of life.”

From my stroller I imagine

ocean monsters.

In the Hamptons, I rip my knee on coral.

blood pools onto sand

I think of my job and am interrupted

by an abundance of saliva.

Sickness slides up my throat.

I look good in my bathing suit, considering.

About Samantha Carroll
Samantha Carroll is a filmmaker in Los Angeles from Long Island, New York.