the first time he kissed me,

I was so excited

to be wanted.

Freshly fourteen, so ecstatic

to be made worthy, because-

at least if you’re a wh*re,

it means 

people look at you, right?

If you’re a sl*t, 

it means

someone liked you once, right?

but fate is a genie

who twists your wishes,

and soon his hands

became harbingers

of disgust and fear and regret,

and his lips

started to taste

of rumors and lies and vitriol,

and his eyes-

God, his eyes-

began to look like

hundreds of thousands,

like ophanims, like flies,

looked like I don’t want to see you tomorrow and

I guess I can make an exception for you and

I can’t stop you, can I?

Like pillars of salt, I fell

and on my knees

I prayed to be saved,

but if god

is real

he wasn’t listening.

that day 

there were no sacred parts of my body left.

i was stick-thin and so so so so empty,

so empty my heartbeat echoed,

so empty my soul froze,

so empty my mind was blank

so empty except for his corruption.

That day I was nothing,

but this

is not that day.

They even say your cells completely replace every seven years.

If you had told me then, it would have scared me,

but this is now, and

I know someday I will live in a body that he has never touched.

Now

I live in skin that he has never seen,

Now 

my hair is free of his insipid caress,

Now

My lungs have never breathed his air,

and in Four Years 

Just FOUR YEARS

there will be no traces left of him

but f*cking neurons.

And someday, when I am asked

For the most impactful day of my life

I will not think of harbingers and vitriol and flies,

will not think of whispers and echoes

will not think of emptiness.

I don’t know what I’ll think of next,

but it will have

nothing to do with him.