I was born into a job. Pain, anger, lust, shame, guilt, fear, loneliness, hate. They would come for me and open me up and put things inside. And i kept them. People would give me things; things that they could no longer bear. Things that were too heavy, too old, too hot, too dirty, too ugly. Rotten things and evil things and secrets for my tiny little pockets. I kept them until they overflowed, little squares of filth and flesh pressed into my waiting palms that i sewed into my clothes until every hem burst open. I squirreled them away inside myself until my body bulged and undulated, fetid and fecund.

Pushing me into little rooms, pressing against me, pushing until i had no breath. Opening doors without knocking, breaking windows that i had nailed shut, screaming into my empty spaces, filling me like a bellows with their rancid breath. The smell of their panicky need staining my lips like my grandmother’s sample case of lipsticks, the gaudy orange-red made my teeth appear yellow, it bled outside the lines and gathered in the corners of my mouth. No amount of scrubbing could hide the evidence of my experimentation, just as i couldn’t brush the taste of their hatred out of my teeth, my gums, my tongue.