Chapter Text
your lips tingle with the taste of your mistakes.
gym class just started (and you were marked absent for the 5th time this quarter) and you sit alone in the locker room.
your reflection silently judges you.
look at you, she says. you can't quit, can you? you just can't say no.
heat rises to your cheeks.
and you're letting yourself get red. fucking pathetic.
she isn't wrong.
you let him tear you open, you invited him into you and he walked all over you.
your entire abdomen is racked with aches of guilt.
god, why?
he, just like every other guy, is just a rung on the ladder.
and when does it end? when you've climbed the entire football team?
none of them ever say "no" when you ask.
and when it's over, you haven't gained anything.
what more is there to gain? you're already at the top.
you're at the top, and what did it cost you?
power is cheap.
power is lipstick smeared across his jawline, dying embers from home-rolled cigarette dancing on the car window.
power is the faces of the merry band of misfits who sit together in the corner of the caf as you pass by them. they are not privileged enough to lend their voices to the lunchtime poll.
power is your croquet mallet coming down hard on the ball.
power is you.
power is worthless. and so are you.
power is crying alone in the girls' locker room.
at least you have a hall pass on you.