Isabella Lopez - Of Soft Skin and Even Softer Boys

I want to write of birds and flowers

Of soft skin and even softer boys

But I can’t write what I don't know

So instead I write of roughness

Of blank stares and pushing back

Your weight on top of me

Crushing my lungs and filling me with fear

It’s never ending

You’re all around me

In every crevice

In every place I have kept hidden

Safe.

From men like you

From boys who don’t know how to take what they are given

Who instead demand all of you

Make you sweet promises and

Dip their lips in sugar

Until you've kissed them clean

So instead you get their venom tongue

Striking you in all your soft spots

Shredding your untouched flesh

Until you are dosed in blood

Messy

Ruined

Then they point at the mess they've made of you

And insist you were always like that

You were never pure

Never innocent or sweet

“You are a wretched beast and I the conqueror”

Looking down at my skin bloodied and beaten

I see the monster you speak of and

Let you make me believe it

Because it's easier to make myself this

A whore.

A slut.

Then to remember that I'm just a girl

Who can be tricked and lied to

Who can lick the sugar from the rim

Before I realize it's a poisoned glass

So instead I write of cautionary tales

Hoping to one day have the vocabulary for softness