in defense of piercing my navel:
after Karla Kelsey
i am trying to love my body and myself even though we are both bad at our jobs. listen i need to be feverish about something again. the world exhaled now i'm all alone again. i never got to be 17 i'll always be 17 hello~ i could write a bad poem where the lesions are little fireflies—no let's make them fairies, twirling around in my white matter 1-2-3-4-5-6 and so on. do i need to love my body or is it enough to take care of it. i gave myself the injections by pretending the stomach wasn't mine. and when i was 19 my boyfriend dumped me because he asked me to define love and didn't like my answer. i think love is when the inside of your body feels bigger than the outside of your body—
and the first time i let somebody take my shirt off i almost didn't—the first time i let somebody take my shirt off i was like, sorry sorry please don't touch my stomach my life is about scar tissue. listen i want to love my body—i want a giant shag coat that oceancrashes behind me. i want to red eyeshadow green mascara PISS everybody off. for now maybe someday is the best i can do. i promised myself when i got off the injections i'd get a bellybutton piercing just because i can. i'll make it sky blue and shaped like a bird. i am kissing my knuckles while the needle goes in
and
i let
my
want
oceancrash
green
i promise myself
i'll make it
conspiracy theory
i don't believe in love triangles, or psychic mediums, or the extra zodiac sign that NASA keeps trying to wedge in, i don't believe in shitty wine, or wearing brown shoes with navy pants, and i do not believe in catfights, please hasn't your heart ever been broken? in the friend way? i have nightmares about all the girls i used to love okay i shittalk okay i am a wounded animal. i don't want to be unbothered. our forever felt longer to me than the forevers i said out loud. i mean, that time we almost kissed but didn't was the most sacred thing i ever did with my lips. i could never laugh all-the-way in front of someone i wanted to fuck and maybe that's my problem, or maybe you know exactly what i'm talking about. i don't believe in catfights, or sister-sized bras, or dinosaur chicken nuggets, like if you kill something, you have to mean it. and this poem is for the girls whose hand gestures i still copy sometimes— i feel them pass through me like ghosts. whatever happened should never have happened and had to happen and what else is a ghost? i still have nightmares about the girls i used to love because i don't believe in used-to-love.
Casey Smith recently received her MFA from the University of Tennessee. Her poems have been published in Poetry Daily, Split Lip Magazine, Peach Mag, and others. To read more, visit https://caseysmithpoet.wixsite.com/home. You can find her on Twitter @aeyoei.