my arms have begun to feel like
the rails on a staircase
that have been painted over one too many times, swollen
and begging to chip – you sunk your teeth

into my flesh
like dull pocket knife blades, but it
was not a love bite. you never loved me enough.
I was

still a child, sprawled on a sofa, spread open,
when you asked if you could
paint me – a rubeneqsue
silhouette that knew too few years,
an anomaly, damning every man with my figure or
something. (*******,
lifebait, ******* until it ruins you)

it sounded as if it hurt you
to see me, I believed you were going to coat my skin in
*** and blood
instead of pouring it on the paper.

you said everything reminded you of my
shape. you
rolled your car window down one day, and it was
rounded at the top – you

imagined it as my *** grinding
down onto your ****.

you cried as you thought this, your daughter
in the backseat,
and fantasized about
cutting all the beauty out of me. you small man, you
coward

I knew
I had to do the bleeding for you
but eventually grew tired
of patching my open wrists with your dried spit.