I Haven’t Masturbated In Five Days For Fear Of Crying
because two different hands have struck my face & I loved them anyways
because we confuse being ignored with being forgotten
because I’m no monster
because the lullaby of headlights from the highway outside my apartment
because when I said no, he asked if I was sure & I said I was sure & reader, you already know how
this story goes
because I stare at my nipples in the mirror & they look like my mother’s
because I installed an app on my phone to track how often I check my phone
because the distance between shame & pride is narrow
because my therapist told me it’s better to break up with someone on a Friday than a Monday
because what I miss most about childhood is sleep
because I take a handful of pills three times a day & am not considered an addict
because I can convince myself that hurting someone is, in the end, an act of kindness so I hurt
because the drowned singer’s voice floods my car & I turn it up & I turn it up
because I did it on a Thursday
What do you call it
when you become someone
you hate for someone
you love & then you hate
yourself enough to leave
yourself & leave the someone
you love because if you don’t
love yourself you can’t love
the someone you love(d)
& then slowly you learn
to love yourself again
& you meet someone
who slowly learned to love
themselves again & you start
to love each other—
is there a word for that?
Eloisa Amezcua is an Arizona native. Her debut collection, From the Inside Quietly, is the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón. A MacDowell fellow, she is the author of three chapbooks and founder/editor-in-chief of The Shallow Ends: A Journal of Poetry. Her poems and translations are published or forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, and others.