the fruit of a girl

i was mature for my age

a passion fruit picked green

to rot in your hands before

i knew sweetness

you stripped me out of my skin

meticulously peeled from my throat down to my thighs

until a husk of who i was laid in your palm

i couldn’t see myself without you there to hold me together

you remember to steal a piece of me each time

as puberty crawled out of my chest, for you

wanted to watch me bloom

instead of pollinating some other

flower, you coveted me

waited for my bud to unfurl

deflower me until my dying arms stain your hands

bruised petals murmur: he loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me—

under your delusion

i swore it was love

to be desired in the silence

you brush up against my back

intertwine your vines around my waist to drag me back in

my memory recoils at your sting that i mistook as the pain of longing

you were the only thing i had to look up to as you dived in

sink your fingers into my insides to eat a little more

doesn’t it leave a sour taste in your mouth? you leave

sticky whispered tendrils

of artifice smeared all over my skin

you devoured my pulp, spit out my seeds, leave a wound to never feel a scar

this, you, should have never been on my tongue.

“And I doubt that I will bloom again in this world.”

—Han Kang