He told me I looked different and I choked
Dirt hymns I spoke went stale in my throat
He asked me why I hide myself in clothes
Contingent parts of me underexposed
I wet my lips and dried my tongue
And in this way the truth begun
To speak
In time
She is the cliff
I am the hill.
She is the mountain
I am the well.
She burns hotter than hell.
And I
Am exactly what one expects
The girl next door all men collect
But underneath the veil, I collapse
In circular form
To something greater
No one will witness
But myself
And clothes
Are my boundary
Between invitation
And discourse.
Gazes focus on the covering
The patterns, prints, and folds—
—What’s covered, never questioned
Undisclosed.
And I hide in plain sight
Never seen
For anything
More than a write-off.
Exactly
How I want it
To be.
But
Take all that away
Keep quiet
And in the dark
Let me fold
Into myself
Until there is no self left to fold into.
Now,
Shoot me.
“I think
You’ll understand better now.”
And in this way I finished my recourse
Beneath the sheets I never did divorce
The sight not all like any I had seen
And never had I really felt so clean.
He packed his lens and said goodbye
And light shone brightly in my eye
But still
I spoke
She is the cliff
I am the hill.
She is the mountain
I am the well.
She burns hotter than hell.
And I
Dwell.
~Ariel F.
