Sad Is Not Sexy by R.I.D

“

his fingers are cold on the white ridges of my hipbones. scar territory, flinch territory, missed-the-sad but-found-the-blood territory. he says, “girls like you are so hot,” and his breath is the desert wind, is a sun i cannot run from, is a waterless river, “you messy ones are always the best ones in bed,” and i actually almost laugh at it

last night while the rest of the world was asleep i was lying awake counting slowly back from one thousand hoping that this time i would find the strength to say no to the darkness

i am pretty for an ugly girl. i am cute for someone so broken. i am almost worth the high-maintenance, the texts i send in desperation, the food i won’t touch that you spent hours making, the fact i push away literally all of my friends

girls like me are so hot. we are red dwarf stars. we are burning up in the sky of your sheets. we will do anything just to stop thinking. we are open fires, we are the forest turning to ashes. we have destroyed everything close to us because it’s better that way and we never deserved it in the first place. we have ruined our lives because it’s all we seem to know how to do. girls like me are so hot. we are hungry hands that search over our bodies, picking at soft places. we are eyes that cannot cry, not for lack of wanting. we are a high noon that never ends, we are shaking, we are barely able to form a fist but we still beat ourselves with it.

i want to tell him, don’t touch me. don’t look at me. you don’t get to make my pain into something sexy. you don’t get to see me as that one chick you banged when you wanted something a little dangerous. you don’t get to tell your buddies that you played with the night sky herself and you feel really good about it. don’t touch me without knowing the name of my shadow. don’t look at me unless you are willing to understand my world. don’t act like sadness is a tight dress. i’m not distant because i want to be. i am distant because i am a supernova, and my entire soul is burning.

i push his hands back. i say: there are stories in my fingertips you will never read.

he lights a cigarette, chuckles, says, “can’t help that i like my girls crazy.”

by R.I.D