Virgenya Zhu

you are girl you are apple split in half you are jellyfish tattoo you are

blemishes plain under the fluorescent lighting, 

skin dully translucent as they cradle the point of your chin as if it is 

pandora’s box and cornucopia at the same time.

you are meeting their eyes. 

you are nails fire engine red, caked with dirt and sharp like nettle, 

knuckles puffed up like life jackets, 

cheeks flush with artificial gratitude. 

you are luna moth.

you are girl you are cabal you are borrowed time 

you are constellation broken into shards, 

cartilage twisting into a grotesque apparition of pleasure. you are slick 

red tongue 

pressed to the roof of your mouth as they probe you for the rest 

of what they’re owed, 

divots of your molars pressing together into ellipses when you grin. 

you are girl you are track marks you are bacchanal you are freezer burn, 

watching the lamb bleat fruitlessly as the ram marks her fate, 

horns ripping open her underbelly, your apologies not being

enough to staunch the bleeding, the damp weight of failed metamorphosis

hanging in the slaughterhouse.

you are girl you are sugar rush you are getting pried open you are so scared

of being lonely of being next of being last 

of becoming kafka’s cockroach, 

nabokov’s cover girl, 

a revulsion on display for the whole world to see.

you are gorging yourself on the remains of the girls who came before you 

you are being served 

you are ravished on the table, cool metal pressing against your shoulder blades

you are girl you are swollen ankles you are letting it happen 

you are turning your nose up at the threat

of sepsis.

you are ivory tower you are plague carrier you are

sinew vibrating against the incisions 

you are sternum jutting out like antlers 

you are laying in the body bag 

waiting for your headshot. 

this is your soliloquy.

you are girl you are brass knuckles you are body broken in.