True Crime

by Samantha Kolesnik

There was never a woman who I wanted to be. The movies didn’t show any women worth emulating. Just lumps and mounds, colors and shapes. Heaps of flesh you could make into chaos.

In every place where I wanted to be hard and small, I was soft and growing.

I wished someone would take a knife to me and treat me like a chicken. I wished they’d cut off my parts and package them to be sold. I didn’t need them.

Everyone called you sweet before they defiled you. A virgin was nothing if not ripe for the teeth.

Every girl in the world was taught not to trust her gut. Every girl in the world knew she was the fool in the play.

When people prayed to God, I wondered, were they praying to Him or were they praying to me? I couldn’t quite see a difference in that moment.

I tempted fate. I tempted murder. There was a rage so deep inside of me that wanted a man to dare try to kill me. There was a hate so deep inside of me that wanted me to dare just die.

I never understood why Jesus did what he did in the stories and all. I never really got what the point of it all was. It seemed like a lot of pain and for what? The world was still a shithole.

Like all good monsters, I came not by force, but by invitation.