Poetry by Raquel Luciano

                emilykneeter CC




Litany of Bone-Crushing Facts

      i.

I could not tell if I felt sick because of the alcohol or because of his relentlessness against my body. It’s 5am. My tires are collecting dirt from the asphalt for me to bring home. I’ll hide it all in a jar. I want to go home. I’m falling asleep. Stop. Can you call me a car. My slurry words replayed like a pop song on the radio without all the volume. Pulp Fiction on VHS on a vintage television on repeat suffocated me. It might have been 6am. I only know that the sun was awake. I only know that bottom-shelf tequila and cologne held my lungs and refused to let go. My front bumper grabbed onto someone’s back bumper at a stoplight because, of course it did. The man must have taken pity on my running mascara and smeared pink lipstick. It was my fault. I kept it moving. It must have been muscle memory, creeping into my driveway while everything was upside-down. 

      ii.

I texted him first and I was drunk and I wanted it at first. It is a gray area. It sucks that I was so drunk. My male boss reminded me of these bone-crushing facts. 

      iii.

He was cheating on his girlfriend when it happened because, of course he was. I told her everything. She was only interested in the cheating fact. 

      iv.

In third grade, a boy with ears bigger than his bald head shoved his hand down my shorts on the school bus. I kicked him where I knew it would hurt. Got him suspended from school. I wish she was still in me, that spunky take-no-shit little girl. 

      v.

I don’t even know his real name and I knew no one would be interested in slandering a popular local DJ over a drunk girl making up stories. I kept all of my dirty shame in the jar. Which is not to say I didn’t tell anyone, I did. It is just easier to tell it like any other story. To leave out certain details. The closet mirror. The feet. The way he demanded to finish like he deserved applause and I deserved to live with it.  






Red, White, Pink, and Clean

Little scratches 
noticeable enough to warrant 
questions, but never deep 

enough to stain 
the tub. 
We left no trace 

of the transgressions committed 
behind shower curtain shadows. 
You were the beginning 

of my fear of commitment. 
I was always too lazy 
to take you out 

of the pink and white plastic 
that surrounded your hairy silver 
edges. I was always too lazy 

to press hard 
enough to land 
myself on a cold bed. 

Sometimes, I hid 
you under my pillow
like a secret 

crush, when being clean 
was too much work. 
In tenth grade, 

I took a Psychology class. 
I thought it might help 
me understand why I punished 

my body. When Mandy pointed 
at my left wrist, she cackled 
like I had etched a joke 

on my arm. I pulled 
my sleeves up further, 
let my wet face burn 

the scars hanging 
off my skin, 
I reveled in my pitiful red spotlight. 

I guess there was something funny 
about her mocking 
me while learning 

about why I might not be as smooth 
as her. I tried drawing butterflies 
on my veins to scare 

you away. You hunted 
them down every time. 
I told you about the girl 

who laughed and you suggested 
I try my legs. My grandmother 
used to warn 

me not to shave above my knees 
or else I would look like a whore. 
She never mentioned the tender 

skin where my thigh meets my pelvis. 
That’s where we made bloody 
bubble baths. Your teeth 

fed on my softness 
as the water changed from clear to dirty. 
You and me, we conspired 

to keep me covered in thin scabs 
that read, NO BUTTERFLIES ALLOWED. 
When people ask me why 

I stopped shaving my body hair, 
why I threw away every blade
in the neighborhood,

I don’t tell them the truth. 

The truth is something like: 
I don’t want sharp 
reminders in the same place 
I’m trying to get clean. 



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Raquel Luciano is a future educator and a student at the University of Central Florida. She lives in Orlando with her girlfriend and their five crazy cats. She loves singing bad karaoke. Find her on Instagram @raq.poet.

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