mistletoe

it’s Christmas, so you sleep with him.
it’s Christmas and your family is thousands of miles away
and you’re lonely and it’s snowing ad he drove you home and
he let you pick the first movie and he picks the second one,
a comedy you’ve never heard of before and when he laughs,
he looks at you to make sure you’re laughing too,
so you sleep with him.

and maybe you always thought you would be in love with the first person
to bruise your body in places only you and the mirror ever see,
maybe you thought he’d be younger; maybe you thought you’d be. maybe
you thought the lights would be on or your underwear would match
or you would feel ready instead of easy. maybe you thought there’d be
flowers and mix-tapes and permission, or that you’d have a better reason
to sleep with someone for the first time than that it’s Christmas
or it’s snowing or you're afraid to say no because then he might leave
and then you'd be alone tonight in your too suffocating apartment, so this,
this is nice because it has to be. this is nice, even if you feel like
you’ve lost control and someone else is calling the shots,
and sure, flowers would have been nice,
sure maybe you always thought—

but eventually, there’s an afterwards. there’s an afterwards
where the tv is shut off and the snow has slowed and
you’re lying awake with your eyes closed, on your side,
facing the wall. there’s an afterwards where you’re wondering
how you’re going to check for blood without letting him know
you’re expecting there to be blood, where you’re wondering how you’re
going to find the confidence to look him in the eyes or ever leave
the room again. eventually, there’s an afterwards, where you’re wondering
when you’ll fall asleep and if you’ll fall asleep alone because
he still hasn’t come back from the bathroom and you can hear him on the phone,
trading “love you”s and “miss you”s with his girlfriend,
and god you should have known—

you’re wondering if he thinks you’re asleep or if he thinks
he closed the door or if he thinks you already knew
and now you’re wondering if you did and now you can’t be sure
because you’re not surprised or hurt more than you were before.
you’re just wondering why you couldn’t be asleep to save you from
having to lie in the dirty sheets and the afterglow, trying to forget
you know, trying to find your clothes, trying to face the fact that every bruise
he left on you tonight was made with another body in mind.

you’re wondering if anyone’s ever been so cruel or so blind, if this
will be the last time you trust someone to lead while you trail behind
if everyone’s first time feels like they’ve been complicit in a crime—

god, god, how are you going to live with yourself this time?
how are you going to live with yourself this time?

so in the afterwards, when you’re finally in the afterwards,
you’re thinking that you’re never going to let anyone know
what you did on the Christmas you were nineteen and it snowed.
you’re going to put on your clothes and shake off his touch
and go to sleep and tell him in the morning that
you didn’t like his movie as much as you liked your own
and he better get going, he better not forget his phone.
you’re going to put new sheets on the bed and take a shower.
you’re going to pretend you don’t like mix-tapes. you’re going to pretend
you never expected flowers. you don’t even like flowers;
they mean too many things. you’ve never gotten them.
you’ve never gotten why.