Cecilia Knapp, “Bodies

Bodies

I held his lighter to my chest like a promise that he hadn’t made, like he’d made me a promise.

I watched bodies clip themselves into the tongues and grooves of each other, like lego.

Everything was the way the bodies moved, everything was the way the bodies moved into each other, everything

was my jeans, friction burning my spine.

I moved my body, thought about my body, wanting my body to feel enough,

to be useful to his slender hands, whilst at the same time, wanting to take every

man home with me. Collect them like pennies from the street

just to throw them from the tops of buildings, to say that I can. To use

my body to fill spaces. To use my body not my mind, for all the times

I’ve burned. To use it like I only have one purpose. To use it like I could be free.

I waited for his hands to find me through the bodies, all night.

I watched his body move, his shoulders lose like he wasn’t even thinking of his body,

shirt began to stick to his body, and I watched him hold another woman’s body,

wondering if she wondered if her body was enough.

She looked like she was made to do this. He held her, I held the lighter in my fist

between the bodies, so many bodies pouring around me like sand,

all I really wanted to do was get lost tonight, somewhere between skin and walls.

I kept the lighter close. Lit a candle when I got home though the sun was up,

fell to my front door like it was the steps of a church And lay with the ghosts of the music

dancing in my ears and bones. Waiting for my body to breathe normally again.

Waiting to get lost.