I was seven years old the first time a teacher told me my tank top was inappropriate.
To cover my shoulders,
Cover up,
Close my mouth.
I was seven years old the first time my body was sexualized without my permission.
My body was sexualized without my permission
Before I even knew what that meant.

In the fifth grade I wore long sleeves,
To cover up a different kind of shame.
The kind of shame you give yourself when you’re tired of everyone else’s.
The kind of shame that bleeds before it heals into perfect pink lines,
Parallel with one another because something had to be perfect in my life even if I wasn’t.
But my teacher only noticed the sleeve that fell off my shoulder,
Told me to cover it,
Cover up,
Close my mouth.

I stood in the streets of Paris in eleventh grade, not feeling romantic at all
As I escaped an uncomfortable encounter,
Approached by a man on the subway.
My teacher tugged on the hem of my skirt,
“You dress like this because you want attention”, she said.
It was my fault, she said, because my clothes told him I wanted it.
Wanted him in my personal space, close enough to my face
To smell his breath.
Asking for it.
I should have been covered up.

What I heard in school were the words
****,
*****,
*****.
What I heard my teachers say was applied to girls,
Not women.
Little girls being taught that when we are born female,
We are born with shame engraved into our skin,
Into our hearts.
The only anatomy I ever learned in school,
Was my shameful own,
And to cover it.
Cover up,
Close your mouth.

You're the way you look at 4am when you've woken up for the umpteenth time,
And I don't know why, but I rub your bare chest with my cheek and hope you're alright.
You're the way I feel when you take my hand before I take yours,
And you're the speed of my heartbeat when we kiss, no matter how long it's for.

You're the way the stars seem to tell me that you love me at night,
And how even when we're fading that same love always shines.
You're the way I drink myself to sleep in thoughts of your pain,
And no matter how hard I love you, you always feel the same.

You're the sand and I'm the ocean when the tide comes in each day.
And you're the ship that promises to take me far away.
You're the salt on my lip and the sun on my back,
You're all that I am, and you're all that I lack.

The first time I kissed you, you felt like home. I kissed you again and again, all over until we realized at the same time and much too late that you’d had too much to drink. I would have kissed you when you left, too, but I was shy and you were beautiful and sometimes it’s scary on your first night in a new house.


You started a fire and I got there too late to put it out, to tell you I’m sorry they don’t understand and I’m sorry I don’t know your every crevice quite yet. The second time I kissed you, you welcomed me home and said sorry, I’m sorry that you don’t know how it started or where I put the lighter after I lit our home ablaze. 


I spent my heart pouring water on the embers of a grease fire that I thought was wood-burning. You threw sparks at me when I tried to tame the heat of your coals because I didn’t know how. The third time I kissed you, I called the old tenant and asked her how because I didn’t want to light myself with your manic flame. 


The fire turned to ash and the house got cold when I let myself in to rooms I hadn’t seen before. I used bobby pins to unlock the door instead of asking for the key; I suppose I should have known the abandoned nooks would have chilled the whole house. The fourth time I kissed you, your lips were blue and your eyes were open and I knew the flames were gone and I wasn’t sure I was glad. 


I don’t know when our house fell down. I was wrapped up in your eyes and how they don’t change when you smile at me when I looked around to find the walls on the ground and the roof blown away. The last time I kissed you, you said goodbye instead of goodnight and left me at the bus stop to find another home.