On a Saturday night in September
I am wrapped up with a boy
in between sheets that look
like photographs of my parents’
wedding. The next morning I flee
to his bathroom, look in the mirror,
see bruises like rats’ heads trailing
my too soft abdomen, come close
to fainting on his bed with my head
in his lap and ***** stuck in my throat,
strong sweat pasted to my forehead.
His palm is on my head.
He is calling me by another girl’s name
and I am feeling like 12 years old again,
like 12 years old I am fainting
after somebody talks about ****.

Another night in October the moon
is bright and full like the belly of a pregnant
woman. I find myself alone again in a
bathroom with eyes red as the breath
of a newborn. I hate myself in cycles,
the way water does, my flesh like
the skin of moths. This boy is still
calling me by another girl’s name, if
he calls me at all. But his voice when I hear
it sounds like my old baby teeth.

November I should not let anybody
hold me in the way that I am. November
I find my body lying flat against hard pavement
listening to songs about roads and graveyards
and driving. I still don’t know how to drive.
This boy does, though, and I tell him that this
is why I still talk to him. But he sees the way
my fingers tear at the crooks of my knees
as if they were cadavers. He offers
up his body to me like a lamb’s head.
But I am no god, no saint, and he knows this.
He does not come for me.