Today I saw that a girl I used to know

shaved her head. I wanted to believe

she looked fierce and fiercely free,

but instead she looked small and vulnerable.

She looked strange and startling,

and I pitied her. Just because

you have found the grace of God

doesn’t mean you haven’t lost yourself,

I wanted to shout.

I had therapy this afternoon

but it turns out that forty five minutes

isn’t enough to make me feel light again.

I feel dangerous: fragile and full.

My breaking point is trying to break in.

I am trying to hold strong while past perversions

slide down my body like beads of sweat.

I tried on my biggest pair of jean shorts last night

and I couldn’t button them.

I feel the strangest mixture of rapture and sadness

sometimes. Sometimes it is just sadness.

If I don’t know where the pain is coming from,

does it even really count?

I know better than to ask myself

why I feel the way I feel.