How to Sell Your Virginity on Craiglist

by Natalie Schlosberg

I bought my first binder six months ago.
Now, whenever someone mentions the school/office/paper supply
that weighed me down in the sixth/seventh/eighth grade hallway,
I assume they are referring
to what People Like Me
fasten across our chests.
To be bound, by definition, is to contain.
Bound, adjective:
I strapped down the parts of me
(mischievous iron beauties)
that begged to be mishandled,
and somehow I found them to be already misplaced.
(ran away? rubbed off? rubbed up?)
Like my virginity, sold them on craigslist.
Some anonymous fuck used his paypal, and afterwards
I was called a pal. And paid. priceless!
During, not sure:
I told my story to his eyelashes.
Spilled it on the bedsheets.
Mumbled it as he fumbled with it.
Like some silly zombie,
I continue to share.
(to pour myself everywhere)
I told myself to microphones,
sold myself to prescription pads.
Gave my hands and knees to middle-aged drug dealers with a preference for smooth skin;
the silk of infancy.
He wore grains of sugar up and down his shameless stature,
burnt like mine in a fire
only abandonment can fuel (therefore I can relate)
Lapped it up but
I didn’t have a brown paper bag to keep it in, or a blazed bonfire to hide,
so I give this to the loyal envelope of my tongue
and chew one of the little I Love You’s every 9:54pm,
ritually.