in sleep

i used to slide into a delicate half-consciousness & realize he was massaging my belly & holding me so closely, it almost resembled love. the body he seemed indifferent to in waking hours, come nightfall, was touched with such precious tenderness, i thought maybe i was precious too, but only in the sleepy haze of moonlight & sativa clouds. only when he thought i wouldn’t know, wouldn’t find out. i was fifteen years old when i wrote the song “am i enough” & have felt the reverberation of the perpetual “no” zing through each vertebrae ever since. saturn said “be not afraid” but i cowered & called out to him & disintegrated into black matter. am i always just saw dust steeped like green tea for exactly three minutes at one hundred & sixty five degrees? please don’t overdo it. please don’t leave me to congeal on the back burner like forgotten bacon grease. you could have reused me. repurposed me into something of value, something nourishing & satiating. it’s always food & sex with me. it’s always binging & purging. the french fries. the french guy in the bar bathroom. it’s not my fault. it’s not my fault. i still ran away with the switch blade drawn. i called the liar crying hoping for reassurance & comfort & for all the sociopathy, he was. reassuring & comforting, that is. men love to tell me i am nothing then contort & shapeshift into something they think i will want. all i want is to be wanted. to be heard. they think i don’t listen, don’t retain because my tongue flies faster than formula one. but i never miss a word. hold it all the way he held my belly in sleep. maybe they don’t think i’m as worthless as they tell me i am. maybe i am the glass half full, tummy spilling over my jeans. i was no more heard when they sagged off my underfed frame. it’s always food & sex with me. it’s always always. it’s always never. & it’s never. i am never. never been kissed. not like i matter. no one has ever peeled away from my thin lips knowing how important i am. (i’m sorry, sylvia). they just leave their cum crusted on my glasses, gasping for air & grasping the door knob so i know to leave. leave them sitting in a clarity that reminds them of regret & stale pretzel sticks at the pediatrician’s office. i want to know the part of me that is not regrettable. that can be loved in waking hours & not just in sleep-iced beats. a man kissed me on the street last week & the cars all honked like i’d won the lottery, but all i felt was bile inching up my throat like an earth worm aerating the soil of a fae-guarded garden. longing to be neither reward or regret, just a human basking like an iguana in dazzling daylight, belly splayed to the sunshine, enveloped in a love that needn’t be earned or hidden. there can be pride in loving me too.