1st Place Helix Moon Piercing – by Dr. Priscilla Duran-Luciano, MD
Helix Moon Piercing
It bleeds,
thick red droplets
hiding in the folds
of my ear.
It hurts.
I don’t know
what hurts—
my ear,
my helix,
my cartilage moon,
my heart.
my heart—
who knows.
I carry them,
the bleeding moon,
the crying capillaries,
my sore heart.
They melt
into one
single DNA
helix.
And the moon
keeps turning in my ear,
its tides pulling
my last crimson tears,
until nothing is left
but the quiet scar tissue
of healing.
Bio: Priscilla Duran Luciano, MD, is a research fellow in cardiovascular epidemiology and an emerging poet based in New York City. Passionate about the heart in both clinical and poetic senses,
she writes at the intersection of medicine, identity, love, and resilience.