Gia Raquel

Last night, I stood on a table covered in beer, and drank from the empty cups shared with the lips of the rest of the crowd.

Flirtatious eyes hung from the low ceilings as the lights dimmed until we were all wearing black,

Like a funeral I had forgotten to arrange.

His hands crawled across my body,

My stomach,

My thighs,

My hips-

They felt like they were all mine, for the first time in so long,

I belonged to myself.

I barely held his hand, as he dug his face into the crook of my neck.

I wonder if he could see me beneath the pitch black clouds

And barking winds outside the small windows.

He brushed his cheek against my own,

And I felt like I was carrying a child, wishing for a home and trying to bury himself in one,

In any kind of shelter.

I felt those hands touch me with a drunken desire-

A reminder of someone I wanted to be.

I avoided his lips, full of vodka I had seen in his back pocket.

But his scent was like yours-

Something I could never describe,

Something alike a temple I’ve stayed in for so long.

But I will grow.

With fingerprints, like tattoos, all over my skin.

Where I’ll be able to recall how he pulled for my thighs,

And tasted my neck.

Where I was touched in a glorious and superficial way,

As if were were both trying to forget our past fingerprints.

Where somehow, we might even want to forget these.

But not for that moment.

That moment was reserved for epiphanies,

For self-righteousness,

For self-love.

That moment was for me

And everything I had lost-

Everything I was ready to find once more.