; Poems

15."I Picked Up Your Bad Habits"

i. i crawled across the bathroom floor, my heart tied to one snapped heel, because I'd been taught supplication, not domination. You laughed and stomped on my fingers and I licked blood from the sole of your boot.

ii. i grew thorns instead of fingernails and barbed wire instead of a smile. I wrote it all over my body: ' DO NOT TOUCH ME, I WILL MAKE YOU BLEED.' I WAS SOFT ONCE, BUT NEVER AGAIN.' No one noticed till it was too late.

iii. him, for instance: soft-lipped, sweet-smiled boy with cool hands and a laugh like breaking clouds. I whittled him down, kissed hellish silence and late-night storms into his skin even after he begged for mercy. He stabbed himself in the neck with his favorite pen, because I'd taught him that the things you love hurt the most.

iv. I picked up your bad habits: your bite, your hard eyes, your fingertips that felt like honey and acted like arsenic. Should a boy ever drag himself across bloodied linoleum and hold his hands out to me, I won't hesitate to impale his wrist with the snapped heel I never bothered to fix - I was taught supplication, but now I've been taught to kill what loves me most.

v. thank you for taking me apart and putting me back together loudly and bloody. I no longer hear my own screams, as the screams of my lovers are louder."

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