Sublime

You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.

And yet, my lived experience as a whore has taught me that the strip club—and the brothel, or anywhere else sexuality is exchanged for filthy lucre—is but a sexy church, as sacred as anything built in God’s name. A place where the body is celebrated, not shamed; where desires are a source of pleasure, not pain; a place where bodily delights are

I couldn’t wait to be inducted into the ranks of this female frustration—​the period as albatross, lunar burden, exit ticket from Eden, keys to the authenticity kingdom. Bleeding among the sharks meant being eligible for men, which meant being eligible for hope, loss, degradation, objectification, desire, and being desired—​a whole world of ways to

lugubrious

stoned on puberty.

derelict

“Unpacking My Library,”

fecund