hi, and welcome to our cultural exchange programme

two girls in love

We are two girls in love.

You—

with the opportunities awaiting you once at uni,

with a guy in Phoenix, Arizona

with God. I am too

but only through His creatures.

Eve, and once Adam in a 7-Eleven toilet.

I am in love with the first sin

her exposed body, her cavity

hibernating pain.

You've nursed every lover's womb envy and concocted fiction for why it must be.

Do you think Adam watched his son's fratricide? Did he pray

or maybe hide

or did he do what he does best and blamed it on his wife?

Eve stands in front of the mirror.

Asks herself how he can love her better.

She's been contemplating nudes, but maybe after she's lost a pound or few

This is the reason—

She pinches her thighs, her upper arms

stretches skin and cries.

Me—

I want to be embalmed

blistered in her acidic tears.

I want to inhale all her insecurities

infect her skin

a virus

reprogram her default setting.

I want Joanna, but she don't want me.

She loves the same God who's burdened Eve

with bodily toil, an eternity of missionary

and unsolicited sexual inquiries.

We are two girls in love.

Me—

with the way you morph the mundane.

Winged eyeliner and Glossier tints,

with the magic nestled in your being.

More than skin, more than the scale

and whether or not you're shaving.

I would keep letting you touch me, knowing

it would break me if it meant I could absorb and

maybe cleanse you from our mother's sin.

from all the men who've grown stronger

richer

bolder

through Eve's submission.

But you don't want me, you want help

sending the right kind of nudes to a dude

in Arizona who will break your self esteem and gaslight you

prolonging your healing.

We are two girls.

The sullied fruit discarded on the floor

of Eden, neither of us

getting what she wants.

We are spun out of the same machinations, our desire gilded

since Eve's time,

to indulge Adam and his sons

to set the table, prettily

to not disrupt their fun.