Member-only story
New Years Eve
A poem, a moment captured and frozen in pain.
The girl in the selfie on my phone. Unknown.
Locked in the bathroom with a turquoise tattered wet bath towel
precariously hung on a crooked bar behind her glittered bodice.
Ice sculpture posed while pieces chip away,
drip down to her burning heels
because lifted calves. Mint-speckled mirror baring jade eyes–bloodshot, bulged,
mascara smudged–oily scalp, bristled ends, and unkempt curls.
Imperfections indicated in crystal, noted as she had in every surface
since age eleven. But something froze her compulsions of femininity
stiff as her body that one December morning. How many weeks ago?
I ask my screen as she asks the camera. Lean,
pout, click. Post.
This dress on this body, reclaimed, will mean
everything. She’s standing tall, expression unconvincing.
She didn’t intend for this snapshot of the end of the old,
the dirty, the desperate.
She aimed to record the start of a decade anew while
