"It was summer. I was lying on the bed, on top of the covers. I felt a touch on the inside of my leg. I opened my eyes. He was lying next to me, pushing himself against me and kissing my neck. I felt paralyzed, like in a dream where you try to run and your limbs are very heavy, like molasses. And I went numb. I remember looking over at the wallpaper and letting it fill my vision and numb my mind."

and now the wonders of the world
are locked behind the glass-paned doors of
a fancy store I can't afford to even window shop in on an idle afternoon...

"Because I had, like, a circuit breaker inside my mind. And I could just flip that switch and the little pink flowers on the wallpaper or the light on the ceiling with the fan swirling all around it would become a swarm of bees. We had a cherry tree in the yard and there were bees there and there were pink flowers on the wallpaper and there were bees there too and they became a swarm of bees filling my ears with buzzing and filling my field of vision and whiting out my body and whiting out my mind. And then I'd be floating inside that swarm of bees, hovering above the scene that was actually taking place."

and that lovely swarm of bees
that had blocked out the sounds I didn't want to hear
and filled my vision so I didn't have to see
are blinding and deafening me...
to the wonders of the world
and all the things I've never seen
including all the beauty that's in me