lover is a day

man coats girls ring finger with saliva

man coats girls ring finger with saliva while the woman next to me talks to be about abstinence

the woman says if you let them inside something will break
i wanna tell her that i am already broken
(if an oil spill is an oil spill then the damage has already been done)
that if tingles shot up my spine, they would find skin already parted like loops of messy crochet

you need to focus on your future, the woman says, on getting home safe
i think about the blood most i guess, and the smack like a glass ball dropping down against a wave, like the girls mouth on the man's cheek

the girl whines 'baby, are you sleepy'
i wonder where the man lies his head at night
if the girl's parents know anything about her besides her middle name

don't let pretty boys fool you the woman says 

what she doesn't know is that ugly bones snap, always
that's why i learn to dance
cracking my hips, like the girl, to adorn a head with needle-shaped bruises
to smear cayenne up and down a brown body
to bite into plantains and pour sugar water into my bathtub

the girl smears chrysanthemums across her lips like the magenta lipgloss i choked down freshman year

the woman tells me that my friends will never want to hurt me
i laugh because she doesn't know shit about how i have grown from the ash they told me was candy. we are all initiated like this, repenting for who we were in middle school

the girl stops kissing the man to hand me mouse pellets
we both grow wings
(only they smell like merlot and i'm not that brave)

i tell the woman that i can't leave my bed sometimes
she smiles, tells me that God will provide all

i'm still trying to figure out if biting through my skin was worth it
or if i can keep on relying on uncertain forgiveness

if i knew it'd get this bad i would've worn more lipgloss
if i knew it'd get this bad i would've
                stuffed my bra with chrysanthemums 

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yO so i wrote a new thing w rookie all abt my binge eating disorder (link in mi bio), also i placed merit in young arts for creative nonficiton and i might post what i submitted but it really depends. also my finals start monday, good luck to everyone abt to take theirs/ppl who've taken them but don't know how they did!!