Couldn’t look the cashier in the eye
as I placed Diet Coke and cheap
concealer on the counter while
Heather hid another lipgloss
in her hoodie. Later, our loot
spread out on her living room
floor, she said to me, Not wanting
to get caught isn’t the same thing
as being a good girl — my whole
life shifted a little on its fault
line: Morality, that meat-eating
plant, bloomed muscular guilt
in my gut. Once, I put my allowance
back in my mom’s purse for her
to notice, and she didn’t. Stopped
two bullies in front of a teacher.
I stood in the dark of my
father’s front yard looking
into my lit bedroom window
trying to see if anything could be
seen from the street, but there was
no girl, uneven breasts straining
in a stained white bra, squeezing
at her skin. Once, I kept a diary
of good things I didn’t do
in case I died and people needed
a reason to keep loving me.
How could I think I was better
than everybody else?
Like the loose strands of hair I
unstuck from my lipgloss,
I wore myself poorly.
When we left that CVS,
Heather was the one smiling.
My goods tossed into a paper bag,
my pockets empty.
Lexi Pelle lives in Randolph, New Jersey, with her two dogs. She was the winner of the 2022 Jack McCarthy Book prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Ninth Letter, One Art, Sucarnochee Review, and Zenaida. Her debut book, Let Go With The Lights On, will be released in May.