his hands were in my hair shoving my head down. i turn my face, and flashflash, i’m stitching myself inside out and all i can come up with is stained betrayal. his teeth are tough on my neck. i imagine they’re metal and somehow, it hurts less. his hands on my hips and he’s pulling me backwards. i’m screaming in my head, my skin is cracking and molding.

i still dream about it.

i still run my fingers along the edges and look at the scars, the bruises, the cigarette burns.

i throw my arms over my face and his mouth is by my ear and he whispers “i know you want it.”

i’ve always wanted it, just not with you.

i feel the wall against my head before the rest of me follows and crumbles like old newspaper.

someday i will be in the yellow pages, soaking through the paper and smiling, half-heartedly, through the words.

and i still wonder if the last lesson was learned. what never happened that night and never was, with him anyways, because of the blood between my thighs.

in my memory his face blurred in two different directions – as his jeans unzipped and i stopped breathing. he blurred into a future and i blurred into a past but somehow the world stopped at the present. his hands were unusually soft on my face.

they say jesus looks on and his palms are burning black. i’d love to smoke his skin in a snail shaped pipe and fly.

his hands are going up my shirt, the walls spin in twenty different versions of up and down. colour can no longer be contained. in my mind i run. in reality i couldn’t move.

the story will never end. the story will never change. i know my future will be just like my past, because affection is my weakness and the hole in my heart is growing. they say jesus will kiss the bruises on my hips and tell me it’s okay. if i get on my knees and pray well, they say he’ll forgive me.

i stopped believing in belief long before he tried to take it away.