Hats Off To The Bull

Your name sounds like a conqueror's
You could conquer my entire body if you want to
Navigate from my mouth to my sex
Like Spain to the Incan Empire
Your tongue is a compass
Let your finger travel inside my hair
Like the thick of an Amazonian jungle
Leave me hot, drained like the Sahara
If it is my cunt you desire, Cortez,
Take me as a hostage

White Blank Page

12 am and i am howling at the moon like it's going to save my soul

crescent moon

like your crooked smile

pressed against mine like in the way we kiss

the way your laughter tastes in my mouth

the way your eyes smile

the way you glow in the light of my bedroom 

i let you into my Life like a metal spoon in my mouth

full of food for my small body

not understanding you would maybe nourish me

and biting on silver against my little teeth

you are red apples' skin in my teeth

you taught me how to feel hunger when you left

you always told me to eat and never understood how i could swallow you whole and still never be full

 told you tonight you make me feel so small

you make me feel as little as a seashell inside the great, wide ocean

you pull me back with the tide and let me crash on rocks

 you kissed my forehead like my brother

i never knew i could let a stranger in and never let him leave

Sweet Tooth

he brought me a third of a red Twizzler he bit off
handed it to me like he was presenting it to me, still chewing on the other halves
but i marveled at the way his hands look in a still, resting way
the way they press to his chin
the way they make him look like he is made of marble
panicked
said, "what?"
couldn't look him in the face
took the red vines in a slow hesitation
and as i did he walked away without looking at me and said, "have a nice day"
i put the candy in my mouth
bit down
i imagine how it tastes in his mouth
i imagine kissing him slow
lips first
pressed together
the way he and i are skin to skin some nights and i still want to pull him closer
i bite the candy and imagine it's how his bottom lip feels tucked between my teeth
i let my saliva pool around my tongue and tremble when i think of his tongue caressing mine
coated in sweet and warm like rain in August
i eat the rest of the candy as slowly as i can stand it
i finish it in the way we kiss
slowly first
then hungry and anxious
the sweetness melts around my tongue
and i have never been this hungry

Habits

I have an accidental habit of collecting books I've never read and leaving them unread on my bookshelf. I have an accidental habit of collecting boys who always want to kiss me on the mouth and never want to call me their girlfriend.

When Winter comes and my step mom asks me what I want for Christmas this year, I'm going to give her another list of books I'll never read. When February comes, I'll spend another Valentine's Day on my own and feel really sad when I see babies at the grocery store.

The Stigma of STDs

Let's talk about sexually transmitted diseases and infections.

You've probably heard someone make a joke about somebody having an STD.

You've probably heard things totally inaccurately compared to STDs.

You've probably met somebody with an STD. And you probably never even knew it.

In fact, the chance you've met somebody with an STD is astronomical. Globally, 1 in 2 persons has genital herpes ( in the United States, 1 in 4 persons you've met has genital herpes).

Sexually transmitted diseases and infections are much more common than people think. Some people have contracted one of the 20+ types of STDs and they don't even know they have it. Some people contracted one or many STDs and they choose to not tell anyone (which is fine, as it's nobody's business but that person's business and the business of whomever they have any sexual encounter with). Some become infected once and are able to clear it up with medicine and they never have to worry about it after that. Some become infected and must take one or several medicines every day, so they don't become very sick. Some become infected and must take their medicine or else they will die.

The problem with our media and pop culture portraying STDs is that there is a terrible stigmatization that comes with it. There's this horribly inaccurate idea within our society has that only "sluts" get STDs and only drug addicts get AIDS, etc. None of that's true.

Moreover, not only is our society making a bad name for people with STDs, but they're making jokes about people with STDs. Not fuckin' cool.

Diseases are not a joke. Having depression is not a joke. Having diabetes is not a joke. Having epilepsy is not a joke. Have HIV/ AIDS is not a joke. Having Any STD Is Not A Fucking Joke.

And do you know why it's not a joke? Because having an STD is not funny. It's not a punchline. It's not a novelty. Contracting an STD is traumatic. It's exactly why rape is never a joke- it's painful and terrifying and serious.

Now, aside from the obvious slut- shaming (which I sincerely hope I don't have to explain why that in itself is shitty), we have got to shut down this idea that only people who sleep around get STDs. Anybody can get an STD. You already know a busload of people who have one now. There are people who have STDs because they were in long- term relationships and their partner was unfaithful. There are people who were born with STDs. There are people who have STDs from the first time they were ever in a sexual encounter. There are people who have STDs from having been raped. There are people who have STDs because someone they were sexual with either did not give a fuck about their partner, so they didn't tell them, or they never even knew they were already infected. The latter is shockingly common. Many STDs begin asymptomatic, and so the person infected doesn't even realize they've got it. All that is to say is that it's not for you to judge. That's not fair. That's not even what a decent human does.

We need to make a safe space for those infected. There are a lot of them out there, and the World we live in isn't kind to them. Living everyday with debilitating pain and weakness and shame is difficult enough, and making the space we share with them a hostile one when we make jokes and stigmatize them is not making them feel safer.

Brother

Brother,
Oh, my God, how you steal my features,
Encapsulate them inside your hands,
Long and slender fingers, like mine,
Silver wedding band on your ring finger.

I want to play Connect the Dots with the sun spots on your shoulders.
I want to sit in the cornucopia of your ear.
I want to sit with you,
3am at the kitchen table,
Cigarette smoldering between your long, slender fingers,
Tell me everything you know about being twenty- one.

Here is the World as I see it now.
There is no fair.
My body has been tired since I was a child.

Brother,
First boy I ever loved.
First boy who ever stood up for me.
On most days, the only boy who stood up for me.

Brother, this World has not been good to me.
You always said there would be struggle,
But
Are my eyes
Supposed to be this dark?
Brother,
I think I am too young to feel so tired.

Self- Immolation

4:36am
I wrote a poem about you I titled "Fire"

It has been two weeks today
I am still burning

And I do this to myself, you know.
You know how I always throw such a fit when I don't get what I want
So I have taken up self- immolation

What happens to people who self- immolate
Is they set themselves on fire
And they sit
And wait

The first twenty minutes are excruciating.
Flesh burns away
Nerve endings, exposed, ablaze and raging
You can literally feel your skin melting off your body

The essence
Is time.

After all the skin and nerves are burned away
You don't feel anything.

Your entire body is in flames
But you can't feel it.

It has been two weeks.
I am still waiting for the stillness.