NEVER BEEN KISSED

I see you,
lonely darling,
skulking around weddings
like a grave robber, slicing
off the softest, fleshiest parts
of your body
like meat at Sunday market.

Stop
punishing yourself for
being untouched.
Sometimes a hand
is just a fist.
Sometimes a smile
is only a knife.
Sometimes a man is only
darkness taking shape.

You lived
two decades
with nothing but your spine
holding you up.
The way light does not care
if shadows follow
you do not have to be wanted
to prove you are real.

By Natalie Wee

Biography:

Natalie Wee is the author of Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines (Words Dance Publishing, 2016). Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Drunken Boat, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Prairie Schooner, The Adroit Journal, and more. She has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and two Pushcart Prizes.