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TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUALITY, ALLUSION TO EATING DISORDER MARVEL In high school I was envious of the bulimic girl, her legs thinner than mine would ever be. I ran cross country and track, ran 100 miles a week, ran my hand over the hollow of my belly. When I fucked a classmate’s older brother he marveled that his hands could wrap around my thigh. He fed me his cock and because I thought this meant it was love I opened my mouth like a baby bird – hungry and wanting. The next day I had a new noun behind my name: now I was a skinny slut instead of just skinny. I snacked on iceberg lettuce, extolled the merits of rice cakes, carried an apple with me like I was trying to decide if I believed the snake: would the knowledge be worth that first crisp bite? - LIKE THAT ~after Kim Addonizio Love me like a horror film, when the virgin is stumbling through the dark in a short skirt and kitten heels - completely impractical yet anticipated. Love me like the water cascading from a waterfall, unable to stop its headlong dive over the rocky edge. Do it without asking - swipe the salt-shaker from the diner, walk out on the check. Love me like a hurricane, meteorologists predicting a path you refuse to follow. Tear up the coast and head inland, toss the palm trees like confetti at midnight. Revel in the mess left in your wake. Do it in the only bathroom at a house party, when there's a line queued up and waiting but I'm balanced on the edge of the sink and you're between my legs. Wrap your fist in my hair and pull me close. Watch in the mirror. Love me when it's late and the road stretches before us like taffy. When you're asleep in the passenger seat and the dog is asleep in the backseat and only the radio keeps me company. We'll switch and you'll drive the last three hours and I'll fight sleep but eventually nod off and when I wake we'll be home and we'll be happy here, if you love me like that.  Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the full length collections Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart (Riot in Your Throat) and Beautiful & Full of Monsters (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), chapbooks All in the Family (Bottlecap Press) and The Violence Within (Flutter Press). She is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning. Read her publications on her blog: www.wordperv.com. Follow her on twitter: @wordperv, and IG: @wordperv79.
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