something something shame blah blah blah
I think about your bed, how it always made my back ache. I think about the towels you put under us before we had sex, always an unnecessary measure but it made you feel more secure. I think about your chiding glare, the glare that indicated I was being childish and naive, the glare that told me to find my place again. I think about watching you flip through tabs of porn on your old computer, and I think about your red eyes when you smoked. I can picture your room clearly. The anime posters beside your bed, the walls otherwise bare. The small desk is covered in dust and trinkets in the back. The bookshelf is full of action figures and ceramics from elementary school. Your room is always dirty, but there is an order to it that makes it clear there is no room for anyone else but yourself.
I think about my sexuality now much differently than I did then. I think I hold it in a more tender place in my chest than it was. The place I hold it is very soft, padded with feathery down and linen. It looks like Abstraction White Rose by Georgia O’Keefe.
I can hold it in the dip of my back as well as my chest, and I like it there better because it is farther away from my mouth.