from Centrifuge Eric lives above a small clinic on Ocean Parkway. Eric says meet me by the yellow deli and we walk together. Eric: 5’5, skin the color of milky coffee and green glass eyes. I’m too tall, pale, padded strapless bra, baby pink tank top. I float his room, touch his things (a gun... is that really a gun?) trace them gently like a girl.
Come into the bathroom (it’s dark) sit on my lap, (I sit) tell me what you want. Eric’s friends come over, high school boys, brown and long-limbed. They’re easy, fill the room. One cocks his head: This your girl? Nah, Eric answers, rolling blunts, not looking up.
***
First week of high school, the Towers fall. We’re in the auditorium waiting. Simon sits in my lap and pricks my finger. He puts the bloody mess in his mouth. I don’t know him. I could sleep for 100 years, I’m faint, that’s how come he’s my boyfriend.
A date we go on: Natural History Museum: he finger fucks me right below the towering elephants. I take myself home, eyes closed against the subway glass.
***
At lunch, a friend pulls me aside. Simon says you’re dumb as shit but at least you’re pretty.
I pass him a note and tell him it’s over. Simon garbage cans my friend, fractures her arm. Simon dates a girl I know. One night, at a metal show, I run into them.
She minds the heat and I lend her my shirt, a tank top. She never gives it back. She tells me she likes to wear it when he fucks her.
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Gala Mukomolova received her MFA from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. She is a poetry editor for Muzzle Magazine. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in a variety of places including Indiana Review, Drunken Boat, and PANK. She has resided at the Vermont Studio Center, the Pink Door Retreat, and Six Points Fellowship: ASYLUM International Jewish Artist Retreat. Nowadays, she impersonates an astrologer for The Hairpin. She's a lesbian. It's cool.