this strawberry is pink on the inside
i walk out of the water, you see my body, you don’t ask questions, yet he just tries to hide the once over he gives me because i’m no longer skinny. he’s inside of me and he calls me perfect. he doesn’t even know me. i could lie to myself and say maybe if he doesn’t think about me he might still think about my body. he doesn’t think about me at all. pushed out of his car, naked and bleeding. roadkill. no one told me how much it hurts. i walk along the sand, passing him by. i am proud of myself for doing so. i get back in the water.
i like to close my eyes and imagine Aphrodite would’ve kissed the fat that clings to me. her lips would’ve have marked the pale expannse of my body, her lips glossy, leaving me sticky and slightly glittery. i would kiss her, she would taste like the earth and vanilla. she would smell like lavender. i would kiss her again. she tells me to give up on being skinny, for life is full of fat and blood and lust and birthday cake and blood.
my hips are bigger than my brother’s. my teeth more crooked than my mother’s. our family plays russian roulette and i have three bullets. my sister has 2. my brother plays with 2. i do not let my youngest sister play. i begin to drink as much as my mother does. my father disapproves of both of us. i turn to God, i am hungover in church. no one else in my family goes to church anymore. only for funerals.
my hands are sweaty. my rosary rusts and turns my skin green. my sins seep through me, accumulating into tiny beads that roll down my arms and swirl the air around me, colliding with the incense and candle smoke.
at dinner, you told me to get my elbows off the table because it's rude, then proceeded to rattle off every single flaw in my design. i remember being fourteen, staring at the bits of rotten meat between your teeth, wondering where you get the nerve to pray to your god with that mouth.
you hate the blood coursing through my veins. the daggers in my gaze remind you of my mother's worst mistake. my name is a bitter taste to your tongues. you only remember my birthday the day after. and even if i take a bullet for you, you'd only blame me for bleeding all over your carpet.
you never raised your voice when you were picking me apart but i wish you did, because now that i'm grown i dread the violence that can murmur in silence. you don't look at someone's emptiness and think expensive dolls and coloring pens and swiss chocolates would fill it. you all fucking knew about the angry man at home, all you had to do was not punish me for being born into a tragedy i didn't write.
but look at you, a decade and some years later, untouched by small revivals, still sanctimoniously spitting on my new skin like it's the only thing that genuinely delights you. don't you see? your stones don't create ripples anymore. instead we're in an empty theater and it reeks of gasoline. i'm fiddling with a lighter and one of you will say the wrong thing. this time, you're all going to listen me.
