Your body would turn me gay

people often ask why i wear black. why i only wear black.

i list off the usual answers that seem to illicit a nod of approval.

it goes with everything. it doesn’t show stains. laundry is easy…

sometimes when my roommate isn’t home, i put on her dresses.

her pink sweaters and mini skirts. her lipstick and eyeliner.

i feel like a kid again. before the color was taken away from me.

before my body became a suggestion box for others to place their comments into.

before my hips, my breasts, my thighs became the butt of their jokes.

looking in the mirror, i carefully strip the colors from my skin and neatly place them back into their proper drawer.

i wipe the lipstick from my lips.

slowly, the eyeliner begins to melt, forming black streams down my cheeks.

cleansing me of the color.

I stare back at this woman,

barren with only a simple piercing placed as a shield to protect the most criticized part of her body,

and i feel the ideals of the world begin to lose their pigmentation.

to fade into black.

this is why i wear black.

why i only wear black.