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when i was ugly

by Evyan Roberts

unbuttoning my shirt, 

his tongue 

opens my kisses wide. 

and my words 

descend 

without warning, 

summoning sentences 

that invoke 

fistfuls of garbage, 

disguised 

by my own mouth 

as golden mirages 

of forthright humility. 

sincere exhibitions 

take rest 

on his thighs 

and weigh down 

his intentions. 

at his lap 

he finally smells 

the shit and rot, 

i carry alone. 

rapidly, stories spill  

of when i was ten, 

and men grabbed at me, 

and when i was 15,

and they shouted at me, 

and when i was 18, and 

they put their fingers 

inside. 

and in response 

i ate, and i ate, 

and i ached. 

and he wraps it back up. 

all my shit, the rot, 

and worry. the heaps 

of insecure trash, 

my grotesque truth. 

in return 

he answers in clichés, 

to satiate

the potbellied girl,

he stuffs full 

with consoling flesh. 

evyan pic.png

image: canva.com

Evyan Roberts (she/her) is a queer, fat, black, femme who is deeply committed to intersectional feminism and #blackgirlmagic. Her writing has appeared in 'Ithaca Lit', 'Not Your Mother's Breast Milk', 'Rogue Agent', “Kissing Dynamite” where she was the featured poet for August 2019, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Social Work. Find her on Instagram @writing.femme

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With Him

by Evyan Roberts

First published in Not Your Mothers Breast Milk

In his family's basement we’re watching truck drivers slip and

slide. Transporting fish from one arctic edge to some other

 

icy bank. As a rig slow motions its wheels, his lips

swarm my neck. He grapples with my limbs and wins himself

a place over my body. Pads of my fingers slowly push

 

into his rigid muscles. I plead for space, as technicolor light

catches the whites of my fingernails digging at him. Tipping

his weight into me. Stabbing himself into the barrier

of my cotton underwear, it crumples and shifts from the

 

wetness I cultured hours before. Panic pounding in my skull

as he continues carelessly ramming at my pubic bone. Bluish

hues of the truckers snowy tundra melt into his back and

 

glisten off his veiny temples bulging and perspiring. Between

segments the pale peach of his skin spits a copy of itself on the

screen during blackouts. The force of my hands more frequent,

 

more urgent, I push. Silently crying to get up. And he holds me

against the crook of the couch. Holds all my immeasurable

disgust, all of my disappointment and fright between his pulse

 

and cracked leather. The driver saves his cargo. And I

learned a lesson with him, drenched in chromosomal waste.

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