Look, X, I know all of the ways you try to shrink 
your grief. Changing fuck to make love so the sacrifice feels 
digestible. Still letting him inside you as you bleed onto everything 
he touches. Semen-stained sheets. The darkness between 
your legs. His dick hard & wedged inside of your loss. I see you, 
trying to grasp at any shred of permanence. X, 
fuck the unsolicited comments about who you did & 
did not tell. Fuck the classmates who insist that your silence is a 
symbol for Asian-American womanhood. They just don’t realize 
that the survival must always come before the reclamation. 
Oh, X, there is so much that you insist on surviving. 
Ironic that your parents came to America so that you could legally exist. 
You, faking orgasms so that the sex will end sooner. You, ready to call 911 
(just in case) at the gynecologist. You, fainting after it takes an hour to insert the IUD. 
X, you’ve endured this much of the world. Which is to say, then, 
there must be a version of it where intimacy will not 
trigger a body’s imminent destruction. 
Let’s make it ours. X, your body is not the sum of the differences 
between who you are & who you want to be. 
I refuse to eulogize you, refuse to admit that you’re gone, 
that there’s no bringing you back. I believe you, X.
Whatever you are, I so badly want to inhabit you again. 
Isn’t that rebellion enough? 
I’ll do anything. I’ll go to therapy. Write more bad poems. 
Burn my bras, stop shaving my legs. I promise, 
there are parts of your body that he will never get to touch. 

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