Melanie Brydges
The body as a sacrifice
Fuck me.
Like one of those French girls.
Well specifically the one you fucked on March 7th 2016.
When you kept me up all night in the neighboring bed of
the hostile we shared.
How I wished I was her.
How I wished I was riding you,
your hands on my tits.
Pulling and squeezing and biting at my neck.
How I hated my penis.
For how you awoke something in her.
I wanted to cut it off.
The rusty box cutter was only 4 ft away in your backpack.
Now you have the penis,
how our bodies have changed.
Your hands leave my ass stinging.
Toned arms pinning me to the bed as you fuck me.
Breed me, beat me, tear this body of mine to pieces and
eat the leftover bits for breakfast.
You took the cigarette from my fingers
as we watched the sunset on that beach.
You told me you hated your chest,
how you wanted to cut them off.
With the same rusty box cutter I almost cut my dick off
within the greasy shower stall of that hostile.
In hindsight I would have probably gotten an infection
and bled out.
Would have you cut your tits off and bled out with me?
Now I steal the cigarette from your lips,
your cock still slick and shimmery in the moonlight.
I take a drag and we both laugh.
Your body a product of masculinity,
my body, a token of femininity.
“How did that feel?”
“Like we’re probably pregnant now.”
I blow the smoke in your face and smile.
The sun will rise tomorrow,
you will fuck me again in the morning.
We will both cum,
I’ll make you coffee.
And you’ll put your tie back on, and
go home to your wife.
I still have that razor blade.
I’ll pull it out after you leave.
Relieved it never drew blood.
I’ll go about my day, with a waning smile on my lips.
I will repeat the words you said to me
So many years ago in that hostile,
“I am a woman, and you are a man. Nothing can change
this.”
Catcalled
Walking down the street, eating a Bahn mi.
Walking down the street with a coffee.
I get cat called.
On my way to a party on a college campus, I don’t know.
My faux leather combat boots soft on the pavement.
I’m walking down the street eating a Banh mi.
I am walking down the street wearing a tight leather skirt,
and a purple sweater that kisses my tits.
The evening sun retreating behind buildings with no
name to me.
I am getting catcalled.
I am walking down the street squeezing my coffee
thinking, “Is this womanhood?”
The crux of my situation.
Walking down the street with that stupid Bahn mi.
My mascara is running now.
My body is moving, I am running now.
Down the street with my Bahn mi.
As I’m catcalled.
Dysphoria Fever Dream
I was in high school
and we were driving.
It was in a convertible,
I think red.
And the top was down.
We were speeding.
I had a cocktail of drugs in my system.
The radio blared:
Jesus died for somebody’s sins not mine.
Looking up at the morning sky,
streaked in blues and purples,
as the clouds rolled off the lake.
My best friends sister drove,
in a yellow low cut crop top,
or maybe it was his dad.
Time blurs itself.
Was this when he ranted about Affirmative Action
And I bit my tongue.
Or when he sped past the cop and yelled, “bite the
fucking bullet”
I can’t recall
is it the drugs, or the repression
or both?
Meltin’ in a pot of thieves
Wild card up my sleeve
The convertible sped on,
a blurred flash along the winding forest highway toward
the big lake.
I rolled in the back seat.
Unbuckled.
Peering at the sun,
through tortoise shell Ray Bans.
Riding the clouds like waves.
Some boat set adrift.
Thinking about my own existence,
my own abandonment,
my own longing.
About how much I wanted to wrap my lips around Bryan’s
cock,
or how that girl Caroline asked me to finger her at the
club.
Or how I was worried I may have hurt her when I bit her
neck and she didn’t like it.
About how she fucked that stud Tony in front of me.
My sexuality in question,
My gender in question.
My gender…
My gender..
My gender.
Thick heart of stone
My sins my own
They belong to me, me
Labored breathing,
consuming more and more.
On our way to mothers day brunch
on the lake.
I read that book Less Than Zero last summer,
and I feel like that fucker Clay.
The birds and the trees
and the rocks and the clouds
and Bryan’s face and Chloe’s breasts
all blur together.
“[Redacted], have a cold one son”
His dad jokes,
slapping me on the thigh
A little too close to my cock.
A little too close,
enough to give me goosebumps.
Bryan’s eyes glow,
Like his father’s.
I want to kiss him in the back of this car.
High on acid and grass and beer.
Trying not to spill on my Ralph Lauren polo shirt.
I’m movin’ in this here atmosphere, well, anything’s
allowed
The turns get sharper,
the acid and weed and beer mix.
I lay back and enjoy the ride.
Son, he called me son.
I’m not his son.
I’m not anyone’s son.
I don’t feel like a son.
Do I look like a son?
These shorts could pass for girls?
This polo is pink!
I think I had Gynecomastia as a kid.
I’ve always kinda had breasts,
not pecs.
I think of his sisters tits again,
and his dad’s hand on my thigh.
Getting hard.
Do I want to fuck his whole family?
No, I hate them.
I just want Bryan to fuck me.
In a mild bout of homophobia
I tell myself I am a girl,
and it’s not gay.
My sexuality in check.
My gender in check.
I was at the stadium
There were twenty thousand girls called their names out
to me
The car sped
faster now.
Matching the pace of my heart.
The sun shines brightly in the day,
and I take off my glasses.
I’m a girl, I repeat.
I take a hit of the joint Bryan passes me, head in his lap.
His hand strokes my hair,
long enough to pass for a girls now.
“Boys we’re almost to the restaurant.”
His mom turns to us.
The words lost in the wind.
“Can....put...joint...way.”
The acid begins to eat
away at my existence.
And I’m lost to the eternal sunshine.
On a planet that isn’t mine.
In a gender that isn’t mine.
In a body, with a penis that isn’t not mine.
With a mustache I didn’t want to grow.
With parents that I do not love.
I melt into Bryan’s lap,
and seep through the leather seats.
Landing in a chair
at a table holding a glass of champagne and orange
juice,
cheering to a 87 year old woman I don’t even know.
Craving a cigarette I don’t have.
They’re singing,
they’re singing,
they’re singing.
They’re singing, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not
mine.”
Lyrics by Patti Smith
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