By K. Olivia Overton
Channel 62 at 2:00 a.m.
features naked ladies
and a man’s voice that guarantees
the second DVD free
sent in discreet packaging
if you call now.
Their shiny skin and soft cries
made her tummy tickle
like when she would rub her scraped palms
against that secret place
Mommy said not to show anyone.
“Why do I feel bad now?”
She asked. Mommy promised,
“Because the Holy Spirit knows.”
Guilt was a sticky sadness
like leftover cotton candy
staining her tiny fingertips,
rotting her tiny teeth.
Shame penetrated the shallow cavity
of her flat chest where the Holy Spirit was
supposed to be.
Shedding wet remnants makes it difficult
to ignore that secret place now
shrouded in damp curls.
But at 2:00 a.m.
she would remember
their shiny skin and soft cries.
She would embrace
that sticky sadness
in a boneless
keening prayer
that brought her closer
to God than any man ever would.
She would stare at the crucifix
in elated devastation,
touch her own shining skin,
crying softly:
let Him see, let Him see.
K. Olivia Overton, an Indiana-born Floridian in the U.S., struggled not with being gay but with being “gay enough” when she was a little girl. Her poem “Voyeurism” challenges the internalized anti-queer ideology of her religious upbringing. When she isn’t filling out grad school applications, Olivia crochets, belly dances, and bakes bread.