MY FAMILY DOCTOR SAYS the thing that grew in the middle of my back is not a mole, but something called pyogenic granuloma. A scary name, but noncancerous, just a benign, bright, red tumor. He searches for the medical term of the tumor on Google to show me other people’s tumor pictures, resembling raw hamburger meat with blood polish. I look away. I’m given a dermatologist referral for it to be removed, but since this kind of tumor has low importance, it may take a year to get an appointment. A year is a long time, I think, and I don’t know how to live with it. My red dwarf, my cool, dim, small star, bursting with the potential to last trillions of years on my body’s constellation map. I name it Eric. It hears the name and slowly raises its head from its lazy nap in listless recognition. Eric likes hot showers and being enveloped in the foam of the cherry blossom shower gel. He likes my cotton, 17-year-old t-shirt with John Lennon’s giant face in the front, softened with the wear of the years, or being naked in the warm breeze. Eric doesn’t like a man stroking my back, or my nails getting caught on him in an absentminded scratching. He hardly tolerates bras. He can be a drama queen when he suddenly starts coughing blood like an actress in an old Turkish movie dying from consumption, and complains through a tingling pain all night, a siren song in the guise of a beacon, drawing my mesmerized fingers to unearth more cardinal blossoms. Some nights, as both Eric and I lay in bed, our shared back turned to each other, I can’t resist fantasizing digging my nails into him with hatred and pulling hard, until I rip him off my skin, snuffing his spark. My fingers slowly crawl toward my back. Then stop short. And Eric, my red dwarf, lays there, desperately attached, hushed, holding his breath, pretending to be asleep, with infinitesimal reliance on the kindness of his stranger body-mate. •





Ecem Yucel (she/her) is a Turkish-Canadian poet, writer, translator, and interpreter. She holds an MA in World Literatures and Cultures from the University of Ottawa and works as a bilingual AI trainer. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Evergreen Review, Salamander Magazine, Phoebe Journal, HAD, The Hooghly Review, Ghost Parachute, Maudlin House, Overheard, Stanchion, Autofocus, Gone Lawn, and more.

Website | @theecemyucel.bsky.social | @the.ecem.yucel