Some person is asleep in the bedroom.
Some guy licked my breasts into his own wounds.

Someone thought saying they were safe made it so.
Somebody tried to please me, but never asked the right questions.

“How’s this dick?”
A nail in a tire, but no puncture.

“His pussy” is my sky closing its mouth.
The moon in half, waning.

I couldn’t come,
but it’s whatever.

An icicle drip just hanging on.
Dinner, untouched, resting on the kitchen counter.

Striking the clit like a match but nothing.
I’m going to the terrace to burn,

arouse myself into slow eruption.
Dissatisfied, sighing smoke

as a sin offering
towards a half-repentance.

Sarah Kersey is a poet and X-ray technologist from New Jersey. She is an Assistant Features Editor for the Rumpus. She has received support from Tin House. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in the Rumpus, Hooligan Magazine, Mumber Magazine, the Hellebore, Columbia Journal (online), and elsewhere. She tweets @sk__poet.

Hypertext Magazine & Studio (HMS) publishes original, brave, and striking narratives of historically marginalized, emerging, and established writers online and in print. HMS empowers Chicago-area adults by teaching writing workshops that spark curiosity, empower creative expression, and promote self-advocacy. By welcoming a diversity of voices and communities, HMS celebrates the transformative power of story and inclusion.

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