“Because We Never” by Emily Geminder
never in cars never on a dare never in the back room of
somebody’s basement never playing never have I ever
never once except once because I didn’t think it was so
bad but they said it was bad because those sluts they
would know
those sluts meaning had sex meaning car riding glitter
jeweled meaning nelly was cool hot in herre looping all
summer on the radio because they said really it was bad
because we all sang along because now I was a slut too
so take off all your clothes
because a year before it happened the thing that could
never happen because a year before it happened there
was that girl in our town there were the five guys one
from our school whispers they held her down because I
thought it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen not
like you’d die because you wouldn’t die if it happened
dark wouldn’t come crashing down never once would
you die if it happened
because it could never happen not to me and because if
it did because it never would but if it did I wouldn’t
die because we weren’t dying weren’t unpacked from
our skin weren’t dreaming our deaths like little puffs of
smoke not never not once because we weren’t dying
weren’t floating up above our bodies weren’t scattering
our light like ashes
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Emily Geminder Artist Statement:
Emily Geminder’s short stories, poems, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in
AGNI, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, American Short Fiction, Kenyon Review
Online, Mississippi Review, Tin House Open Bar, Witness, and elsewhere. She is the
recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award, a Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award,
and a fellowship award from the Vermont Studio Center. Previously, she worked as a
journalist in New York and Cambodia.
