Dear hands that started at my back,
dropped their anchor, and dripped their way down my ass;
yeah, no thank you.
You see, because I have accepted the casual nature of this embrace,
does not mean my butt cheeks accept the debauchery of your fingers
slipping themselves into my back pockets like spare change.
You can think of this as the pre-slap warning.
Â
Dear wandering eyes,
I will not gently pull down the shades over your pupils.
If you continue inviting your eyes under my shirt,
I will punch your lights out.
Donât tell me to heighten my hemline, try turning off your x-rays.
And thanks for asking, but no, actually, when I chose this shirt it didnât cross my mind
that the monster in your pants has about as much control as a toddler
in their terrible twosâmaybe less actually,
but by all means, give me consequence for you inability to contain.
Â
Dear hot breath on my neck,
Dear soft slipping words in my hair,
Dear fast hands and slow ears,
Dear one I fiercely trusted,
I donât understand the tornado on your tongue that twists words like ânoâ
into âplease.â
At what point you put my mouth on mute,
detach me from my roots,
and I became just a body?
I donât understand why you want the dead pieces of me,
limbs, caverns, and hills
without calling it by my name.
I know a letter of scripted words means nothing when you are steam
and I am glass,
but the point is youâre still not listening,
and Iâm still not giving up on being heard.
Â
This is not just a letter of rejection from my body to yours,
this
is an order of restraint
from every hair on my head to every footstep I have ever walked,
screaming red and lighting fire.
I know you will leave this declaration as crumpled in the backseat
as you did me.
For centuries, you have always felt entitled to what you could put your hands on.
This is not a Manifest Destiny of skin.
I have been told too many times that my body is asking for things
that my mouth never did.
So here is my body telling you
exactly
what is on its mind,
and it says
this
was never yours.
romaincrisis
blakekathryn
origamiaround
titsay
yousharknotpass
