In the alternate universe, I never wish to see myself bleed.

But those lips were not always sewn shut like the bottom of your mother’s jean skirt you tore as he pulled you over a barbed wire fence.

Her veins are rivers and streetcars, with their lurching lungs, wood platted seats covered in the slippery sweat of thighs.

I am mine and mine alone, despite the sins that have settled into my bones