I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

by Marisa Crane

Define loneliness? Yes. It’s what we can’t do for each other. CLAUDIA RANKINE

If I had to choose, I would say the moment between when you decided to kiss me and when we actually kissed, that is where I wish to live forever. Inside my anticipation, dying to receive you.

We are putting on an incredible performance of survival. Where is our prize?

Had she been paying attention, she would have known it hadn’t happened overnight, that it took a million tiny stabs to bleed democracy dry.

What I’m trying to say is—I’ve never been afraid of anything more than I’ve been afraid of my own happiness. But I want it, oh I want it. Something tells me it isn’t happiness without fear. This small fact keeps me breathing and sleeping.