i’d rather be a prism than pure white light //

in the world i was brought into 
i was regularly treated like a “slut”
i’ve often felt filthy 
from the judgements 
that burrowed into my mind, 
pigmenting my worldview
like the freckles in my eyes

when i was young, 
i thought i could scrub myself clean, 
that if i just tried harder 
i would uncover my purity
but all i uncovered 
was the next layer of my skin

it always vaguely hurt 
because it felt like i was meant 
to feel the pain that my sexuality caused
the agony that was apparently
a lack of access to me
the torture of their unrealized lust
i carried with me wherever i went

back then, i puzzled over their false perceptions
searching my body for the root of this impurity
that seemed to plague me
like his wandering gaze
maybe if i covered up more
maybe if i cleaned up my language
no matter where i looked inside myself
i couldn’t find the putrefaction
and it never dulled the pain

for years, i was bewildered 
by the mess they had me believing I made, 
i began a witch hunt in my psyche 
for the evil whorish spirit they affixed to me
dazed by my sudden ability 
to ‘stumble good men’
believing for so long 
that I was the vixen

years i spent, 
wondering at how wicked i must be 
for being this slutty before ever having touched a man
i tried to be better, to do better, 
to cover up more of myself

i tried to destroy anything beautiful, vital or desirable in me
i dug into myself 
looking to rid my being of sexuality
to become androgynous, asexual—
if not for me, then for the safety
of those who wouldn’t control themselves. 
i took on a responsibility that was never mine to have
in order to be good, to be love,
to be worthy of the divine

in the years to come i would successfully 
teach myself to live without desire
refusing my reality, numbing my sexuality, 
doing everything to stay “above reproach”

at twenty-three i shaved my head
because i craved my own u g l i n e s s , 
i wanted to remove the temptation that was me, 
to erase any trace
of my beauty

as my hair dropped to the ground, 
piece by piece
the scales fell from my eyes, and 
i saw the truth for the first time—
i am a slut!

perhaps not in the way you may expect
from a girl who looks like me
but i’m a slut nonetheless;
a slut for experience, for novelty
for love of all kinds

i have a seemingly insatiable taste for life, 
for all that is held within it
my desires are extensive
dictated only by the novelty of my experience 

i don’t see beauty in one thing, 
i see it in  e v e r y t h i n g 
i don’t know how to choose 
until i feel it  i n s i d e   o f   m e , 
metaphorically or physically—
either way

i am a slut for life, 
hoarding my peculiar experiences
in my memories, in my body
constantly craving more, even before
the last has finished dripping from my lips

i am a slut for nature, 
i spend all my spare time with her, 
curiously, openly, gratefully moving through her
hills and valleys, gullies and springs

i’m a slut for spirituality, 
it’s all God, it’s all Source, it’s all Spirit, it’s all Creator
i’m no longer afraid to say, all of it is the same
it’s an energetic mycelium, 
meant to be experienced in a myriad of ways

naturally, i am a slut for favorites, 
of which i have many 
of equal importance 
with contrasting purposes

in many ways, 
i am even a slut for relationships, 
i crave variety—friends, lovers, 
co-conspirators, teachers, students
heck, i’ll even take the voyeurs

as i grow i can’t help but understand 
that sexual energy is healing energy
it’s why they burned the witches
and later, the sluts [like me]
sexuality and healing have long been one and the same
just as i have always been full to the brim of both

from the time i sat on my first sprinkler 
at 2 years old, to now
my body has understood
what it would take my mind two more decades to grasp
that in order to fully live, i must be a slut 
in every sense of the word, 
that i will always need more of everything—
all at once, until the day that i die

my alchemy is in the ingredients of my life, 
i am not greedy but
i will happily take it all when it is offered
i’ve long known that i’m meant to sample the rainbow
the difference is that now,
i can see that i am the p r i s m
that exchanges white light for b u r s t s o f c o l o r
transformed—seeing is believing

i’ve stopped worrying about your culture of pretentious “purity”
now, i war only with the fact
that not every shade is meant to be witnessed 
by our human eyes
which seems so unfair to a slut like me

even though i know it to be true
it will never stop me from dancing
through every shade of the blues
—floating atop them too <3