Plan B

by Danny

They say smell is the sense
most closely connected to memory:
when I think of you I smell
almonds, cyanide-sweet.

I want you out of my head,
all of you,
your smell, your texture,
your guilty smile.

I am not defenseless.
I am no victim.
I just am
sick of
late-night nostalgia,
exhausted by
wistful travels
down memory lane.

I want my head like
I left yours:
empty
like I was before I found you,
and pure.
I want to scald myself with water and
burn you out of me.

I will scrub your fingerprints
off my spine with Brillo pads,
wash your taste from my mouth
with bleach.
I want you gone.

I will regrow my chastity,
cell by cell,
as though layers of skin
can protect me from the
way you felt inside me.

I am tantilized by the idea of a fresh start:
oh, to be a virgin,
that you might look at me and
dream of defilement.

Danny has hooked up with every best friend she's had since 8th grade. Four boys have told her that they loved her, but all she ever said back was thanks or uhm or nothing. She's said the love word to two boys and one girl but all three times they weren’t in a relationship and she was drunk and crying so I don’t know how reliable that statistic is. Yesterday she called an ambulance for an OD'd homeless guy even though his friend told her not to start shit.