Today I saw that a girl I used to know
shaved her head. I wanted to believe
she looked fierce and fiercely free,
but instead she looked small and vulnerable.
She looked strange and startling,
and I pitied her. Just because
you have found the grace of God
doesn’t mean you haven’t lost yourself,
I wanted to shout.

I had therapy this afternoon
but it turns out that forty five minutes
isn’t enough to make me feel light again.
I feel dangerous: fragile and full.
My breaking point is trying to break in.
I am trying to hold strong while past perversions
slide down my body like beads of sweat.
I tried on my biggest pair of jean shorts last night
and I couldn’t button them.

I feel the strangest mixture of rapture and sadness
sometimes. Sometimes it is just sadness.
If I don’t know where the pain is coming from,
does it even really count?
I know better than to ask myself
why I feel the way I feel.