Virginity
Laila Kearney

I looked out the bright seven a.m. sun-lit window
allotting views of freeway bypasses and angry,
middle-age early-bird bar hopefuls, still with
sleep-filled eyes, stumbling their dingy fermented
watering holes to slowly drown.
A slow, thick feeling of envy rolled down my throat,
choking me and pushing hot tears of acid rain.
I wanted to be them.
I was numb and disillusioned from too many broken
bottles of shattered innocence spread thin concrete
roads leading away from a now ephemeral dream of
purity. The cyclic illusion of attainable happiness
had ended. I finally stopped trying to catch those
butterflies with a hole in my net.
My soul had been anesthetized and left unconscious but
will inevitably wake one day to the burning truth and
naked confrontation of every suppressed moments past
I was numb, but they were dead.
And I wanted to be them.
To float cold alongside my sisters in the dark bloody
sea of bloated diseased fish.