I was born nineteen, all too-wide hips and this timid plaything of a mouth.

The way it curls, spatters into smoke; a dream, a secret.

They all get lost in the same way:

Quickly, before anyone else realizes that they are there.

Each time that I pretend to smile, the pieces stick between my teeth,

And they all taste the same: sugar and blood and ghosts.

Each time that I pretend to smile, I am all little girl lost,

All sweet-sticky sleep, languid as the cat perched upon the windowsill at noon.

This mouth turns itself into a half-opened drawer, all unkissed valentines

And I have learned to choke on my own tongue.

I have learned to tuck my lips into my teeth, try and stop the quiver.

Needless to say that I have also learned that men push harder into me when they know that I am afraid.

I have learned to breathe silently through my nose,

Have learned that if they hear the air in my mouth

Their ears will mistake it for an invitation that I was never giving.

All sugar, all girl: my legs were written as if they were made to be opened, even when I melt them shut;

Carve them into pieces that fit closer together,

Turn them into something that you look at and never want to hold.

My back is arched into a breath, the one that you do not have to remind yourself to take

And most times I find that this is why I cannot tell the difference between a gasp and a scream.

Carry this weight, watch the way it learns to fit itself between one moment and the next

And teach my body to do the same.

Sometimes I cannot find my eyes in the dark, press my knuckles into the sheet so hard that it leaves a mark.

I try to remember how to breathe without tasting every man that invited himself inside of me without asking.

Sometimes I have to convince myself that my body is still mine,

Lie naked on my bedroom floor and try to curl myself into candle smoke and half-shattered light.

I try to decide if I would rather empty myself into the ceiling or seep into the floor,

I decide that there is never really a right answer because

Going is being gone already, and that is the same as being nowhere -

Or is it everywhere?

I have not been sure of anything in such a long time.

I do not know if I even remember how -

Or maybe I do, but no one has been here in such a very long time.

Is a body still a body when there is nothing living inside of it?