Originally from 2022

Making long, sensual eye contact with the watery cyclops that lies below me, the depth of its eye drawing me closer and closer to the pain of home. Empty is clean. Clean is pure. Pure is childlike. Childlike is safe. 

Children are to be protected and loved. 

Right?

I don’t think my body should have lasted this long. I don’t bruise easily. No one takes me seriously. I hide every scar or blemish. No one takes me seriously. I am overweight. No one takes me seriously. 

The eye of the cyclops speaks to me. Don’t you want to feel safe? Don’t you want to be empty? Don’t you want to know what it’s like to finally be safe? It grabs my index and middle finger. They will help you. Let them work their magic. A spell is cast and beige bile tears my throat, and I am clean again.

I am pretty. I am gorgeous. I am desirable. I cannot leave the house without being told by at least one stranger that they find me beautiful. 

“You are so cute! I wish I could steal your eyes out of your head and put them in mine!”

“If you weren’t my daughter…”

“Your body is all mine.”

“I’ll give you $1k if I can have you for just one night.”

“I want to steal your skin, it’s so soft and perfect!”

I am pretty. I am gorgeous. I am desirable. 

I have womanly curves that I did not ask for. My hips are wide. My waist is narrow. My thighs are thick and my butt is round. 

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. 

The gown feels like sandpaper against my entirely naked body underneath. Fluorescent lights, the heavy sobs of a baby, the nurses staring at me like a guppy in a fishbowl. There are dry tears on my cheeks and a bottomless pit forming in my stomach. I am covered in scars and they won’t let me watch TV. My mom is on the way here. 

“Hi, I’m gonna poke you real quick so we can run a blood test. You are so gorgeous by the way!”

I chose what photo I wanted to be on display at my funeral that morning. I was holding three red roses that my boyfriend gave me when he still loved me. And I looked pretty.

“I just want privacy! I just want some privacy!” seven-year-old Harper yelled as her dad stood in the doorway of her dark bedroom, a leather belt fresh with her dead skin dangling from the buckle. He had demanded that she change into her pajamas. 

“You don’t get no privacy.”

She sobbed and sobbed, peeling her Limited Too t-shirt and bright pink sweatpants off, revealing budding breasts and hairy armpits and privates to a wide-eyed 50-year-old man. Her sobs choked her and made her cough uncontrollably, naked and grasping for pajamas in the dark. This is what I was born to do.

I am a sex worker. If I am so pretty, then it only makes sense to profit from it. Thousands of men throw their money at me as I pose and make faces for them. This is what I was born to do. My body means nothing to me, but everything to everyone else. I am pretty. I am gorgeous. I am desirable. 

“Don’t get too skinny. Men don’t like sticks.”

I don’t like to eat. The more food I eat, the less childlike I become. 

There was a window in my room. By myself. Walking in the grocery store all alone reminds me of what it’s like to look out that window and remember that my life is being forced to start. 

The mirror reminds me, too. The way my hips curve like parentheses and the hair that grows all over me feel like hands on my back, pushing me away from home. No matter how much I shave, no matter how baggy my clothes, the clock keeps ticking forward, the calendar only progressing. This is what I was born to do.

i want my mommy.

I Want My Mommy.

I WANT MY MOMMY.

Stature of limitations. 5 years too late.

Stature of limitations. 6 years too late. 

No one took me seriously. 60lbs too late.

Why are your hands around my neck? I was born to do what you’re trying to make me do. Why are your hands around my neck?

I will die naked. 

I go to the bathroom and there is bright red blood when I wipe. I know it isn’t my period because she left me months ago. My womb aches. I feel like a child. So small that he’s caused me to tear and bleed like the virgin I deserved to be. He is a kindergarten teacher. I feel safe with him even though I brought a switchblade with me in my coat pocket. 

I was banned from Instagram for saying that I wanted to stab my dad in the thighs over and over again. My switchblade is holographic. It matches my septum piercing. 

A dark cloak blinds and suffocates me as I take my clothes off and make my way behind the camera. You were born to do this, he says. You are pretty. You are gorgeous. You are desirable. 

I was 8 years old in the bathroom. I wrote the words whore, slut, bitch, and fat, ugly, stupid all over my thighs in permanent marker. I stopped believing in God. 

“God is great. God is good. Thank you, God, for our food. Amen.”

I don’t think I ever believed in God. 

I was 7 years old in my parents’ bedroom. I pointed a letter opener at my throat as I stared at myself in the mirror. God did not have the mercy or grace he promised. God did not protect me. No one protected me. 

I was 22 years old in Beloit Memorial Hospital. I sobbed as they wrapped my arms in gauze and poked me with needles. 

“You are such a gorgeous girl,” the nurse told me, pulling the blood out of my left arm. 

I am pretty. I am gorgeous. I am desirable. And I am dead.