what's a voice without breath
what's a wound without skin
what's art without memory;
a phantom limb clenched in pain and
a sober life that never held much potential for us.
there's a grinding ache in my groin where he grabbed me
telling me it wasn't real where he dug his nails in
whispering that I wasn't a real lesbian
because he didn't know how to tell me
I was the hottest genderfuck whose mouth he ever watched
cradle half-truths about hearts and bodies and sex
he felt the ether, it was tangible,
he didn't know how to worship it so he tried to take it
tried to survive by forcing himself inside my head
like a nail traveling in a tire,
like an air bubble in my brain
and he drinks himself to sleep at night so he doesn't have to watch
me eating slices of my own queer heart with perfect table manners,
a reminder that raping me didn't win his homophobic family back.
