Slut

I am filled with so much shame, you could build towers from it, and they would leer over me and drip bitterness on my skin.

I am betrayed by my body, rocked back and forth over the violent waves. I want to boil in the water, to be clean, but I am not that lucky.

Bruised and shattered, I lie in the cotton, the weight still on my stomach even though you are no longer pressing. In the future, every time I am touched there I get sick.

What kind of person can do this? What kind of person can destroy someone so fragile? Who can take something so fresh to the world and crush it in their fists and turn it to fine dust? You can, and you do.

God, why? Anger and humiliation hum me to sleep. They raise me in the morning. I wear them against my will. I am toxic now.

Because of you. I loved you. I trusted you and now I am reduced to a single word.

My body does not belong to me anymore. The world has called for it, taken it from me. My mother’s words are in my ear; if I ever come home pregnant, she will drag me to the curb and shoot me.

Please, God, don’t let me be pregnant.

A week passes, then six. Nothing and No one visit me.

I have no test, no pretty pink line to tell me what I already know. I wonder if I love you still.

Two weeks later and it doesn’t matter. I wipe up the blood with our dark blue towels and throw them in the wash. I go to bed.

I feel dirty and empty and sick and grateful.

For the rest of my life I only feel right when I am racked with the same shame you cut into me. I deserve this. I deserve this. I deserve this. I deserve this.

Slut.