our unwashed locker skins--

in high school i never washed
my gym uniform-- 
i peeled the grey shirt
free from my torso as i hid in
the corner of a bathroom stall--
sat for a peaceful moment
on the black rim of the seat--
i didn't want anyone
else to know this is where
i went to come undone--
the door was taped on its hinges
like i taped my knuckles
back onto my body each morning
in a choreography of quiet compulsions--
OCD is beautiful if it can make
you skinny-- 
i met him in eighth grade-- the voice 
of a tailor-- who came
to cut off my skin to make
a uniform & fold my into 
the dark corner of a locker room--
a cement box of warm sticky thighs--
i learned methods to
count all the parts of myself--
what's your secret?
everyone asks the fat girl
who took off her skin in the hall
way-- the ultimate strip tease 
is to lose fifty-pounds 
in a month-- you become
a miracle
& i told them that
i run now
but what i meant was that
i run from myself now--
somewhere in the laps
around the gym my legs keep going--
run myself into a vortex-- 
a black hole
shot in the ceiling 
by another boy's ping-pong ball--
cracked like a planet--
i leave her real body crumpled
behind the chipped paint
door of a rectangular metal locker--
0668-- 0668
somewhere in a deep sleep i still know
all the combinations-- 
i could unlock
myself again & wear navy blue
shorts & a grey t-shirt
both drenched in sickly coconut paradise
perfume to hide my own sweat--
i teach myself to 
sweat CVS body spray-- i smell like
a synthetic isalnd breeze--
on hot afternoons the asphalt behind
the school reverberates heat-- 
i bubble in the yolk of the sun--
school seems to lingers in june & so
i pretend the basketball nets are palm trees--
the soccer nets blackberry brambles-- 
the juice or blood running down our arms--
return to the locker room where the
cool tiles on my bare feet 
remind me how thin the skin 
that separates us is-- i'm scared
to look up at other girls changing
because they know i'm a bi 
but i don't want to look at them
like that-- not like they think--
i want to look at how they choose
to take themselves apart--
if they take their skin home
to wash--
if they linger to observe their
naked body in the full length mirror 
at the end of each row--
what parts of themselves do
they count? 
0668-- 0668
come open me & take
back this flesh--