PUNK PROSE: My Body is a Temple for Naked Girls by B. Hudson


At this point, I can’t remember if I’m in counseling because I like to starve myself or because I like to cut my wrists at night and fall asleep to the sting. My parents tell me I go because they don’t want to lose me, but I am already lost. They don’t seem to know this. I exist in fragments and pieces, and the lady in front of me would do little to assemble them. 

“Are you cutting yourself? I will have to tell your mom if you are lying.”

She inspects my wrists with their faint scars and old wounds. I stare at the clock while she does this. When she is satisfied, I pull down my gray hoodie sleeves. I have won this session between me and the Christian lady. My cuts are etched on my upper thighs and sides. My body cannot be taken away from me, and even though my parents meticulously counted every knife, they did not count the one I swiped from Belk. 

The lady, like every week, opens the bible. This time, she tells me to treat my body like a temple. A temple should not be cut, and it should not be starved. 

“Don’t you know God lives within you? The Holy Spirit?”

I think about this often. Is God a tiny little man living in the core of my chest? She uses the term spirit, so I picture God as mist flowing within me. Panic sets in as guilt over other things I’ve done consumes me, but I’m a child, and she is the only person I can ask to alleviate my guilt. 

“How does God feel about masturbation? Does that hurt his temple?”

 I had watched YouTube videos about the word for rubbing my private parts, so to know this word made me feel adult. 

She is silent. 

She tells me to write down a list of questions and ask them when I return next week. So I do. 

  1. Why doesn’t God like masturbation?

  2. If I don’t watch porn, is it still wrong to touch myself?

  3. Why did God make it feel good? 

I don’t write on my list that I’m masturbating to girls. I never give the Christian lady the list. Instead, I ball it up and make sure it’s hidden deep in the trash, buried with my shame. We never speak of it again. Yet I wonder, if I only masturbate to naked girls on Mondays and Wednesdays, does it make it okay? Does God take a couple of days off and go to other temples?


--B. Hudson

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EDITOR'S NOTE: Something Old, Something New (aka WE'RE OPEN FOR REVIEW REQUESTS)

Hey, pals!  Due to an incredible influx of acceptances (we're stacked for pubs until AUGUST), we had to temporarily shut our doors.  I am delighted to announce we are again  OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS !  We've updated our guidelines; please read thoroughly before sending your awesome words/art/whatever.  AND!!!!  I am VERY excited to announce a new branch of the magazine!  For the first time, Punk Monk is open to review requests!  We will be reviewing books, collections, novellas, chapbooks, and microchaps. (Fiction, poetry, non-fiction, art, hybrid, ANYTHING accepted.) Our aim is to publish 1-4 reviews a month.   All reviews will be written by me, C.E. Hoffman .  This has been a long time coming, inspired by my personal frustrations seeking cool alt lit spaces that accept ARCs for review.  Many mags accept pre-written reviews, but won't review works in-house. This creates an unfortunate barrier for authors trying to promote their work....
Read more

If I Had A Son, I Would Teach Him About Evolution

I bled through the crotch of my pants and the Wonder Woman underwear I bought two and a half years ago on sale at Target while eating chocolate chip cookies in my bed. I put my hand between my thighs to wipe away the blood and realized, that God had once again decided to not put the embryo of Jesus Junior in my womb, leaving me free to continue reading blog posts tagged atheism. --Em Ramser
Read more

PUNK PROSE: Flick the Clipper, Write for Ten, Eat Some Doritos, Fall Asleep and Dream of a Nicer Time by Lacey Cohen

  i like to say i’m not a poet and i still don’t think i am but it’s not because i don’t like poetry (which i still mostly don’t) but more likely because i’m afraid my words won’t be as good as they are when i write other things because when you write poetry every single word matters but when you write a story or a letter you’re able to think softer and hide behind a scene or a fake character that you say isn’t yourself but usually it is and you think the reader doesn’t know that so it’s less scary than writing ambiguous poetry i get some of my best ideas when i’m high and i can never write when i’m high because i can’t articulate the idea as well when i’m high but i know it’s still going to be one of my best because i’m high and, sidenote, i hate that people use the word ‘high’ in reference to all drugs because when i say i’m high i only ever mean pot but when i read certain stories there are characters who are also high but they did hard, scary, addictive drugs that i would neve...
Read more