bubbling with lust again
I run from what I’m wanting
go instead to the local lake
where once I almost drowned
minnows scatter in the shallows
& maybe one day I won’t resent my unruly body
always luststung hungry
always all gluttony & greed
is there any such thing as a sinless body
not mine
all lustborn all animal appetite
& this is the town
where I learned a girl’s touch
hidden in knee-high grass
hearts trying to claw the caves
of our chests this is the town
where I became luststorm
in the bughum of summer
my throat the dry creekbed
all mouth all skinny
dipping in the lake’s deep
& I have always resented my body
for its need
the unruly parts of me
like eucalyptus like brush
for the next forest fire
I want to jump from this rock
to break the lake’s glass surface
with my body
or maybe I want to be the lakeglass
broken into given a girl to hold
wholebody or maybe I just want
to be broken glass
I wish I could write myself out
of my own fear
I worry I’m no longer girl
only lustfiend lustgarden
endless pit of need insatiable
the erotics of a fingertip
brushing my wrist the heart
shaped scar on my knee
what Hawthorne would call the mark
of sin & yes
I’ve bucked against a hand not mine
& yes I know
how I like to be touched
& yes I fear
I’ll always be left
reckoning with this roaring body
I’ve been given lustgrown
fingers stickied with jasmine
glutted on please or just want
in the mangled dark
& rest assured I’m not scared
of coming just of coming
undone of being seen
for what I am not a girl
just a body of hemorrhaging berries
or a paperbag full of bees
Click here to read Despy Boutris on the origin of the poem.
Image by Andrey Strizhkov on unsplash.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
- Not Girl but Leviathan - February 6, 2026