When I was fourteen, a strange boy
came up to me at a dance. He searched
his pockets for something intangible, and then
solemnly informed me that he thought I seemed
to glow. The trap door of my heart
swung wide open, and generations of doom
roared to life.
At fifteen, I would catch grown men
looking at me. I would look away
and they would look longer.
I was sixteen the first time I was unceremoniously
pinned against a bathroom wall by a stranger
at a party. I could not comprehend
the thinness of the air around me which
stole my protests, or the heat which rose
from my skin and cauterized my hesitancy.
All I could hear was the singular base note
throbbing from somewhere deep within my
limbic system, chanting:
“For you, for you, for you.”
That night marked the beginning
of my own Cold War, of lessons in starvation
from which I could only be granted brief
respite. Of need like a wound from which
I could never heal, nor perish.
I woke to discover a bear trap
in place of my body. I became a shiny thing
in a murder of crows—a nesting doll,
forever undressing. If I had to execute every
part of myself which has defected to a
halting grasp, I’d be spread across
a hundred shallow graves.
Hunger is a most painful sensation, a clawing
need which demands to be met. You must understand
how it feels to be haunted by vacancy in the place
you call a home.
Love is a violent handler, sure, which is why
our hearts are the same size as our fists.
Desire, however, is murderous—barbing us
with teeth and nails like concertina wire
with which to snag you up and draw
a bit of blood.
Yet, the trace of fingertips across
the backs of my knees is holier
than any garden I’ll ever set foot in.
I’ll die happy, a thing of dirt and broken
ribs, knowing why Eden never felt
like home.
Cierra Lowe-Price, 2023