Sugar and Spice

Illustration by Joseph Aubrey

By: Megan Bealer

Sugar and spice, and everything
vice—
I’ve got my sins in my back pocket
like a box of matches.
They pair with every set of jeans I own,
slip in with my lace underwear
all the time, stick to my shirts like a button.
It dots my skin in cigarette ash,
poison on my tongue from kissing too hard,
too long.
Laced with my cupcakes like cyanide,
it slithers down my throat.
On my black fingernails typing on
antiquated metal,
in my dark roots, my ringed nose,
sifting through my skull.
Give me black roses,
no times for bed. I like trespassing and dancing
until 2 in the morning, and hoarding
skulls of animals put to rest.
On some nights, I drink as if to drown my body,
or smoke as if to shatter my lungs.
I am without religion,
stuck following the beating of my heart forever
and ever. Never adhering
to the rules the invisible and insignificant, self-proclaimed
royalty
makes about my body. I am free.
Doing what I want, I bear
my teeth. Snarl.
Freedom is:
sugar and spice, and every sort of vice.
That’s what girls are made of.

Megan Bealer is a first year English major and a writer.
Joseph Aubrey is a member of the class of 2015 and an Art and Design Major.