First glance, I’m a good Christian girl. But dark purple flecks decorate my neck.
In leather and lace I forget to pray and let you do what you want with me
because pain is complex and melded with pleasure.

Do you know what they say about girls that enjoy ***?
They never dare to say it to my face but I can feel them staring from the pew
at the dark purple flecks that decorate my neck.

Your hands, more powerful than God, make the earth of my body quake
while I draw fault lines down your back with my nails under the broken
crucifix above your bed. The pain is complex and melded with pleasure.

Deep, growling voice shakes the dusty rosary on your nightstand when we ****.
Your handprints are left on my flesh and the hand around my throat
leaves the dark purple flecks decorating my neck.

Coffee in the narthex and I’m labeled a harlot. Sinner. Sacrilegious. Branded as freaks…
Brush it off. I know what you like and how you like me. God will have mercy.
Sensations blend because pain is complex and melded with pleasure

and I can’t have one without the other. To reach our peak
you leave me red, marked and breathless, gasping, “Oh my God.”
Questioning my beliefs with dark purple flecks to decorate my neck,
I know pain will always be complex and melded with pleasure.

Midnight on a college campus is lonely
if you stand on the right spot-
The empty sidewalk outside the library.
Not sure if it was the cold or the nerves that
Rattled my spine into goosebumps, but I could feel my
Hands shaking, trying to seize comfort from the silent air.
He was late - I chewed the color from my lips, waiting.
The sound of his car slowing, tires too loud on the cobblestones,
Rung in my ears after we pulled away from he curb.
The streetlights seemed awfully harsh as he drove away with me
But his voice sounded the way lavender smells after a rainstorm,
More gentle than I expected it.
I caught myself wondering if maybe I would be okay.
I don't even know his last name.
I don’t remember the night as a narrative, a story I can
Describe to you in detail,
But as frozen scenes of a movie -
Unattached, flooded with momentary feeling.
His fingers in my hair and this time it was heat
Burning down my spine that made me shiver.
Click of the switch turning out the kitchen lights.
Cool leather of a couch.
My own nervous laughter.
Breath forced from the back of my throat.
Fingerprints on my collarbones.
Hands and mouths and hips.
Safe.
Warm.
The ride home being quiet.
My roommate stared in shock when I walked in at 2:30
Flushed and too embarrassed to speak
I could tell she disapproved but I decided that
I would savor the feeling of myself
I am not ashamed of my body or my choices with it
I am not ashamed of being confident in myself for the first time in 3 years
I am not ashamed of enjoying my life
And if someone wants to call me ****
Then I will be there to accept it
With a smile.

This is my family
splayed out like a fox
caught in the headlights of a
passing car, all brown fur
& wandering teeth,
dried up & tossed on a lonely street.
Left behind unaware of
the wreckage caused,
the family bereft of a sister
 & daughter so loved.
That's what I see from the clouds,
from my imagined suicide.
I see a lost family
trying not to stare at a
huge empty chair.
A Christmas table now a shadow,
not a celebration but a day to fear
& that stops any thoughts I
might have about trying to
disappear.

We don’t talk anymore.
Your name is still at the top of my contact list even though we haven’t said
hi in a few months.
Each time I try, the blinking cursor reminds me of when you brought me pecan ice cream
because I broke up with my boyfriend.
I don’t think I ever paid you back like I promised to.

I’m measuring this life in heartbeats and torn atlas pages
and miles of dusty country road,
The space before the inhale of breath
Feels like my lungs are freezing or burning or rotting away

I’ve been pacing through the friendless emptiness of this room for so long that
I think the floor boards are beginning to form fault lines
Over the cracks in my heart
and some nights I miss you with the magnitude of an earthquake.

Can you miss someone who never realized you’d miss them?

I’m digging trenches to outline my ribs because
my chest is more useful as a garden than a graveyard and
I don't want to let your memories be buried here under the
fragments of shattered mirrors you cleaned up in my heart,
Bits of bloodied tissues on your kitchen floor that night I
forgot to love myself because I was too busy
loving the way you laughed behind the velvet curtains

Loneliness is just knowing that the people around me
Won’t hug me when I’m breaking like you did

Your eyes would tear galaxies into my bones, bracing them with
The DNA of a friendship
Your smile haunts my thoughts like a song I’ll never remember
Even long after you’ve forgotten my name,
I don't think I will ever forget you,
Not when I see your face in the strangers on the street and the
ordinary letters of your name

Sometimes people drift out of your life and there is no way that I know
to make the loss of a friend
nostalgic, or poetic, or romantic.
They have their life and I have mine, and I wish it was somehow
closer to their late-night stories and too many drinks under the moon

The worst part is I’m not missing a kiss or brush of hand against your arm
Because we never touched like that,
Just a brushing of souls at the quiet light-speed of understanding.
I cry because the last time I cried like this you brought me pecan ice cream,
And I know that you don’t know that my favorite flavor
Is chocolate now.

My friend says I was not a good son
you understand
I say yes I understand

he says I did not go
to see my parents very often you know
and I say yes I know

even when I was living in the same city he says
maybe I would go there once
a month or maybe even less
I say oh yes

he says the last time I went to see my father
I say the last time I saw my father

he says the last time I saw my father
he was asking me about my life
how I was making out and he
went into the next room
to get something to give me

oh I say
feeling again the cold
of my father's hand the last time

he says and my father turned
in the doorway and saw me
look at my wristwatch and he
said you know I would like you to stay
and talk with me

oh yes I say

but if you are busy he said
I don't want you to feel that you
have to
just because I'm here

I say nothing

he says my father
said maybe
you have important work you are doing
or maybe you should be seeing
somebody I don't want to keep you

I look out the window
my friend is older than I am
he says and I told my father it was so
and I got up and left him then
you know
though there was nowhere I had to go
and nothing I had to do

I saw a picture on the internet of a sign
That said “Welcome to Amsterdam. When it’s hot, please dress for the body you have,
Not the body you want. Thanks"
In the vicinity was a large woman wearing a pink crop top and leggings and the
Image was captioned
“Look who didn’t follow the rules!”
I assumed this rogue internet commenter assumed that this woman,
This beautiful, curvy, confident woman,
Didn’t want the body she had.
Why is it always assumed that fat people hate their bodies?
I’m fat and this IS the body I want *******!
I love this body!
This body has ******* privilege!
This body has enough melanin to tan easily in summer but not enough
That I’m going to be unjustly persecuted for my skin tone.
This body doesn’t get too cold in the winter.
This body has a home and a family and food to eat!
This body is ABLE to run and jump and walk wherever I want
This body is disease free.
This body can fit into a variety of clothing and look good.
I mean it isn’t perfect -
This body has had an eating disorder.
This body has self harm scars,
This body doesn’t always feel like it’s the right gender
This body has lived through 4 school district changes, a cross country move,
Depression, anxiety, a suicide attempt, high school graduation,
Bullying, finding out that I’m queer, finding out that I’m loved,
My first week of college, 16 days of living on a hiking trail
Thinking I’m ugly and realizing I’m beautiful
But I still want this body!

It’s the only one I have

She is radiant. Like sunshine
Lemon-yellow, summer sky, too-wide smile beaming into my ribs
Newfound confidence burning it's way out of her bones
Boiling over into her laugh.
I love the way her fingers tip-tap on the tabletop,
Skittering away from me, my heart in her hands and
Here I am not caring if she drops it because
Her fingerprints will stay.
I gave her my dress because she didn't have one.
I watched her put it on and
Felt the pang of envy that it never hugged my hips like that
She looked in the mirror and gasped with the realization that she is
Beautiful - her reaction so viscerally alive and moving that
I stared unabashed, in awe at her and blushed when she caught my eye
I told her it was just because I was glad she liked the dress.
And she believed me.