demi
my body remembers but my heart doesn’t.
my legs instinctively wrap themselves around the next.
my mind climbs into the galaxy above, searching
for the meaning
of this moment.
space expands wherever i reach.
i move the molecules of stars, transcendently trying to remember what it means to love
as my muscles’ memory and guilt complexes carry out thrusts
almost like carrying out responsibility.
my thoughts float on the waves of light dripping from the vodka bottle on my desk as my body fools around, simply fulfilling its job.
my body remembers but my heart doesn’t
how love can force you outside of yourself
so much that even a year later you cannot utter the accusation “rapist”–
at least my body has forgotten how to cry;
has become fortress
walling up my emotions when i must act in line with expectations.
i give myself to these social scripts while my mind
wanders, constructing staircases to celestial beings while my body is consumed.
my inner self moves among twilight galaxies
in time with the guest in my bedroom.
my hands remember how to be grateful,
they run fingers through hair as if it holds water in a drought
which i use to survive by bringing it to my mouth.
my palms recall the skin of my Hercules lover,
demigod smoothness granting me power to finally finish a thought;
my heart feels a shadow of the day his pinky forgot his promise.
since then, i’ve been perusing bookshelves of constellations
walking mid-coitus through my bedroom’s walls to search for the answers to life,
trying to reach the inevitable destruction of the sun
through letting others decimate my body.
my lips remember kissing space on the rim of an empty champagne bottle,
realizing i had been emptied for someone else.
my body remembers how to betray me.
that’s all it’s ever done since i forgot how to love.
Marisa Adame, storyteller/creative from Dallas, Texas, has acted internationally and performed at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. Currently completing an undergraduate degree in Ohio, she seeks to create work that balances joy and despair using the rhythm of language. She has previously been published in Crab Fat Magazine, Red Savina Review, Metaphor Magazine, and issues III & VII of St. Sucia zine. You can find her on YouTube (marisasaysthings), at marisaadame.com, or on her official Facebook page.