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 Feb 2014 Kay Reed
Emily
I. I say I love you but you remind me of the 5am sky like a bruise across the horizon and holding back sobs in the back seat of your best friends car with my knees pulled up to my chest

II. I say I love you but the nonfiction section of the library feels too much like your hands that afternoon we kissed hidden between shelves of books, worried the librarian might find us

III. I say that I love you but girls like me can't be held down and love is an umbilical cord and I want to be free and I need to own myself. You can't.

IV. I say that I love you but how could I when you and I have changed so much I don't even remember how it feels to be in love?

V. I say that I love you and I am sorry for lying.
 Feb 2014 Kay Reed
Emily
uncertainty
 Feb 2014 Kay Reed
Emily
The sheets were soft and crumpled underneath my back and my mind was wandering even though this wasn’t the time for that, and I thought about how much I always loved the feeling of bare skin against sheets, year round, even when it was far too cold for it to be a reasonable thing to do. There’s something **** about just being naked, as simplistic as it sounds. With only his skin, my hair, and the sheets touching my body, I felt exposed but I also felt strong, which was an interesting mix of emotions. I knew I should have been more fixated on what was going on (he certainly was) but I always feel somewhat disconnected from my body and having someone else touch it made it feel even more foreign. It wasn’t unpleasant to have his hands all over me, maybe just a little disappointing and I suddenly wanted to push him off me and go for a walk outside where the air could fill my lungs. Stuffy. It was stuffy in his room, I thought. The distinctly boyish smell of deodorant and sweat mingled with the fake perfume of the candle I remembered to bring and it was was suffocating me. Outside, I could hear his little brother playing loudly in the yard and I wanted to be a little kid again but instead I was inside in a darkened room doing things that seemed too adult for my body and things I used to tell myself I would never do. I liked his brother; he was a sweet kid and last spring I took him to the park a few times when the older boy on top of me had work at the bodega down the street. It felt ***** to hear his childish yells and I wanted more than ever to leave, but the strange more-than-friends relationship with this boy meant that he wanted this once in a while and I liked him more than I had admitted to anyone yet. The cracks in his ceiling were familiar to me by now and once, after we--******? made love? I still didn’t know what to call it-- he told me that the first night I came over, drunk and crying, he had to run to peel off the glow in the dark stars that had still been up, a remnant from his childhood, and I found this endearing and I had kissed him again for that. One of his hands was running through my hair now and I stroked his chest, which was leaner and tanner than my bluish-white hands. In the back of my mind I thought I might love him but it could have been his body between my thighs. I could never be sure.
 Feb 2014 Kay Reed
Jay
Games
 Feb 2014 Kay Reed
Jay
I never knew the score,
but I always knew who won and who lost.
 Feb 2014 Kay Reed
melodie foley
it has been four months
one week
one day
and five and half hours
since the last time
I saw you
I hugged you good bye
you tugged gently at my bright blue sweatshirt
I imagined that to be your plea for me to stay
You said "I'll talk to you"
I held back tears
as I climbed into a car filled with unapproving stares
I spent twelve hours on a bus
thinking that what went wrong was
disastrous
but that what went right was
magical
I spent the next
four months
one week
one day
and five and a half hours
trying not to.
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