Six years old
as I finally watch the movie for the first time,
at an age I am conscious enough to remember
and process what I am watching.
The Lion King plays on the screen.
I watch Simba's lovestruck stare at Nala, dopey eyes and a lazy smile.
They kiss—
or at least, I think.
My eyes are quickly shielded,
my right eye covered by the calloused hand of my dad,
rough and battered after years of gym trips
and keyboard killing.
My left eye covered by the smooth hand of my mom,
the smell of shea butter lingering due to
her moisturizing obsession.
It seems I am not allowed to watch such vulgar
Promiscuous
Inappropriate
Overtly Sexual
Explicit content
of two animated lions kissing.
Their hands finally cease their censoring
and I am eight years old
Shifting uncomfortably on the blacktop of the playground
listening to my friends talk about their crushes
They call boys cute and nice
and plot to hug behind the old tree during recess next week
I never thought black pebbles could be so captivating
and I swear to myself I cannot see or hear or feel anything but them
The black pebbles, that is
Most certainly nothing else
I move the pebbles far away from each other
as they should be
They should not be touching
or kissing or hugging at their young innocent age
The black pebbles, that is
There are no hands for censoring
I picture them anyways
The whistle blows and the hands drop from my eyes
I am in gym class
twelve years old, running laps up and down the wooden floors
The whistle blows again
And the gym is flooded with boys
The masculine stench of sweat and puberty permeates the air
I glance over to my friends
who have inched away from me towards the boys' side
They giggle and wave to the boy they sit next to in Algebra
They talk about how exciting it is to have co-ed gym class
With their boyfriends
I am suddenly more aware of myself
I feel I am floating outside my body
watching myself do things wrong that don't even have
a correct way to be done in the first place
My lip bleeding from the attack by teeth
I do not know how
I do not know how to be that girl
I remind myself in the moment of weakness that
I should not want to be her in the first place
There are no hands for censoring
I picture them anyways
My name is yelled.
The hands drop from my eyes.
-
I am eighteen, looking into his eyes
A cozy, furnished basement in my peripheral
My hands clasped by bigger, paler, more masculine ones
A look of concern plastered onto his attractive features
My boyfriend's features
He asks why I will not lie next to him
After we engage in intimate activities
Why I won't cuddle with him
Why I just sit there staring at the door
Months pass and he is begging
He is begging me to show that I love him
He is pleading for me to be more like them
To want to hold his hand
To want to sneak quick kisses in public
To tell him I love him when I know he needs it
To tell him at all
Or at least to lie next to him after sex
He is begging
He does not know that I can't give him what he wants
because I am not allowed to
and I don't know how
Because he is holding the hands that have done
nothing but keep me from seeing
exactly what he's begged me for
for the last seven months
They know not how to be hands
any more than they know not to be a shroud
-
There are no hands for censoring
The hands are too busy sleeping in different bedrooms
Too busy scolding me for calling a guy "cute"
Too busy banning me from premarital sex
Too busy questioning me after I hang out at any gathering
Too busy telling me to focus on grades
Too busy fighting quietly in the kitchen when they think I am asleep
I wish the hands were too busy holding each other.
Why couldn't they be too busy to censor because they were holding each other?
Why couldn't they have been too busy to censor ever?
What did I never get to see and why can't I see it now?
Even when your hands aren't there to hide it from me anymore?
There are no hands this time
but I blink
and I am 19
lying in bed staring at the ceiling wondering
Did Nala and Simba ever really kiss?
YOU ARE READING
paradoxical
Poetryyears worth of teenage and young adult angst transferred from a ratty old notebook to this app --for anyone who also feels like everything they do contradicts the personality that they desire to be perceived as