Girls That Never Die

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“I want to make ash of this world that did not protect us.”

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“Alone in a room waiting to be touched & hoping it will not hurt. Alone in a room waiting to be hurt & hoping I do not die.”

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“But what word can I use to call my own, how without disgrace can I name my innocent parts, my wounds...”

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“My body swells in shapes I do not understand. I am hungry for touch & ashamed to be looked at.”

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“Our mothers who were girls before us, afraid before us, raising children into the fear. When I was hurt I cried like a child for my mother, for what she must already have known. & who she could not tell. For what I will not tell her.”

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“I do not want any of what I’ve lost. I want only what I have now, to keep it.”

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“Desire as violence, desire as cause for harm.”

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“I did not think of it as a time to survive. I thought we’d all still know each other, & that we’d all still be alive, meeting years later to retell the story, exaggerating every detail, the cartilage fully healed. I set the table as if someone else is coming. But I got to the other side. I left everyone behind.”

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“I was a girl & like the girls I knew, I bruised I bled I died.”

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“For a time I believed myself in love with Orpheus, which only meant I loved what I could make if I were free from what happened to my body.”