Trigger Warning: SA

it felt like my heart was throbbing in between my thighs and i walked with them apart to hold it still.
i could feel the blood sticking and stretching like saliva threads whenever the tender, bruised skin
accidentally met, pinching, like the twisting prick
of a delicate needle.
i winced. then i scuttered away.
i crawled to the carpet, my easel, and my palettes,
like a dying dog to its owner's feet, begging for mercy
and praying
for forgiveness
for i had let myself be devoured by sin,
and be laid in muddy waters of curiosity and lust.

i showered five times that day

and scrubbed all the paint flakes off my nails,
scratching the pigment stains till my skin burst,
the dirt in them like that off the earth falling into itself
whenever i took a step and my knees gave in,
like an eel was wrapped around them and sent an electric shock
every time
i considered
telling.

i can feel his hands stretching my spine,
moulding my limbs like clay
on a beginner's pottery wheel
and wrapping it around him in uneven sheets.

to touch my own body feels forbidden,
it stings and screams and cries,
vehemently, in its intoxicating pink glory,
but a sweaty palm grinding against its clawing teeth can't silence it.

as i left,
one singular drop of blood on his bed,
and on his walls, paintings of boys squishing their chubby, rosy cheeks against the canvas,
oil and tears gleaming, always wet,
with nothing but fig leaves perched on their pelvises,
begging to be pulled off
by their master,
The Painter.


© lilac_of_hope
Inspired by & adapted from The Painter, Halsey. (IWLMIIC, Simon & Schuster, 2020.)
Photograph by me @ Cattedrale di Pisa