In The Dark

Legs splayed:
Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Hollywood Hills, NoHo.
Hot and sticky days.
Hot and sticky between your legs.

In the dark.
A place to hide your shame,
Your “why,”
Even as you yearn to be seen.

“You’re afraid to be vulnerable,” your friend Emily says.
She’s right.
You were.
You are.

“Let me show you my body, boy.”
In the dark.
Your two legs making a V.

She only has one leg, Emily.
But she’s not afraid.
She’s brave.
She had to be.

Your truth:
You can’t hide.
No, ho.
Not even in the dark.

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Biography

Melody Greenfield, who has been previously published in The Erozine, holds an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. You can also find her work in Brevity; Lunch Ticket; Annotation Nation; The Los Angeles Review; the Los Angeles Review of Books; Meow Meow Pow Pow, where her flash piece was nominated for a best small fiction award; the Pup Pup Blog; The Manifest-Station; Poke; Neuro Logical; Moment Mag; Sledgehammer Lit; Screenshot Lit; Pink Plastic House; Impostor; the Jewish Literary Journal; Potato Soup Journal; The Muleskinner Journal; Kelp Journal; Rejection Letters; Drizzle Review; Fusion Anthology; GXRL; The Wave; Anti-Heroin Chic; and forthcoming in Drunk Monkeys and HOOT’s Cookbook Anthology. Melody lives in LA with her Canadian husband and—when she’s not reading, writing, or singing—teaches and practices Pilates.