I once met a man who read my bellybutton.
He told me that the two horizontal lines
meant I have internal and external insecurities.
I scoffed at the idea that those things
could disappear from mortal souls.
He then pointed to the bottom vertical line,
the most noticeable,
and told me
that meant
my biggest insecurity was my reproductive organs.
I smiled small.
Should I tell him about the dead baby
or instead of the riley women who have male dependency.
I chose the latter,
for Im not sure if the kid is still dead.
I could hear her screams in late night alleys for two years after.
She haunts my horror dreams,
singing we could have lived happily ever after.
Instead, Ill chose the story of my stepfather
who called me a whore
and cried to my mother
that I was trying to seduce him with training bras and black eye liner.
'Did he hurt you?'
'of course,
but so did my mother-
and I've learned to forgive those
who chose life over freedom.'
It's more than I've done.