Pressure

“Pressure”

Kylie Thesz – Second Place

I woke to your thumbs digging craters into my hips as you tried to pull down my favorite satin froggy prince pajamas. Tell me: are they really hips if they belong to an eight-year-old girl? I woke and stared at you; my eyes skinning you with a fear I’d never felt before. You left. I should have followed suit but instead let my petrified body experience fight or flight for the first time. Moments later, I watched the door handle turn the same way it always did but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t dissolve into the floor. You laid behind me and slipped your hands between my beating heart and silky shirt. Tell me: could you feel the pounding blood rushing through my body? My brain chose flight— I soared away from you before you could destroy the blossoming blue-eyed, blonde-haired babe with your flame and destruction.

Pressure. I wake to you inside me. Pounding. Beating. With every push, I feel another piece of my soul fall away. With every pull, another ache in another limb that must belong To another body. How could I let this happen again?

Your morning breath clouds my vision and burns my lungs with the pungent scent of the alcohol I must have drunk the night before. Your breath brings back the foggy memory of bright lights, pouring rain, and James Bay’s harsh British accent. Your breath burns holes in my lungs that never seemed to heal properly. You see, every time I try to take a deep breath, I can feel the fireball and Miller Lite pour into my lungs and I’m drowning in the regret of putting my trust in the hands of a stranger who crushed it in a moment.

Pressure. My hands are locked behind my back in a vice grip that could kill. That does kill. Tell me: do you have what little hope and strength and courage and self-love I had left tucked in an old shoe box under your bed? Or do you wear her like a prize you won with the claw that left razor blades stuck behind my eyelids?

Tell me.