i. i write about a girl with electric skin and how i’m
never sure if her touch will kill me or bring me back to
life, i write about the smell of her hair and the way her
cheek dimples when she smiles and it feels right, it feels
easy as breathing, but my sister says show me something you
wrote and suddenly it’s like i’m a criminal on
the witness stand and i’m wishing now that i’d
burned every page.
ii. when i say i want to be a writer my dad laughs and tells
me fiction is just lies in pretty wrapping, and i should be
upset but all i can feel is relief, like this is one more way
for me to hide, like i’ll be okay if i only ever have
to speak about love in metaphors and if someone asks i can
say oh, it’s just fiction, i can turn it into a joke, i
can use it as a shield.
iii. my cousins will bring their boyfriends to christmas,
they’ll bring bottles of wine that i’ll reach for
like weapons while too-curious aunts ask for the
third/fourth/fifth time if i have a boyfriend, and each time
i say no, not a boyfriend i know they’re thinking of my
cousin who had boys wrapped around as many fingers by the
tenth grade and it will not even occur to them that my idea
of happiness has nothing to do with a man.
iv. i write about a girl and give her a hundred names, hiding
all the evidence that leads back to me, but every word is a
fingerprint marked in ink and i’m counting down the
days until i’m forced to come clean.
