Come take a walk on the wild side...

Listen, if you’re going to leave, that’s fine. and I know you promised you wouldn’t seven months ago while I was crying into your neck but I also know that sometimes it rains even when it’s not supposed to and sometimes boys kiss girls they shouldn’t and we tear flowers out of the ground just to watch them die and things change, so I understand if you’re done, but please, when you’re packing all your old sweaters and books, don’t forget to take all your three AM phone calls, and photographs where we’re smiling so wide it looks like we’ve never known that feeling in the pit of your stomach when someone screams “I don’t love you anymore.” Take back every kiss, every night you fell asleep next to me, every poem I wrote you, every song you sang to me, every “I love you more fight,” every shock I felt in my skin when you brushed against me. I was never scared of ghosts until you left but now I see you everywhere and god if you’re going to kill me please just do it quickly because I see you in everything and it’s making it hard to breathe

fall for someone who looks at you with wonder in their eyes, for while love and lust are nice, they should believe you are magic.

The Flute

I don’t seek forgiveness. I seek blessings to commit the sin that is you, over and over again.

This is how it begins Children at play On a roundabout that spins At the same speed as our globe Blurring a lifetime in one day Until it comes to a stop We all get off Exchanging the currency of youth for age The world still spins In a roundabout way

"in the night"

We must create work that refuses to leave this world the same as when we entered. We do not have the luxury of only writing the selfish confession, we must testify in our court of craft that these poems we write are bold, unflinching, and unwilling to stale idle in a geography of madness. We must demand of ourselves to write the uncomfortable, dangerous, shift-making poems. How much longer will we write casually in the face of a beast?

i fell in love with the sound of a wolf’s howl; all bitter and lonely and searching. and i think i fell for you in the same way, for the spark of the animal behind your eyes the slight tremor in the curve of your lips and the way they shielded fangs from the world, poised to shred it to pieces when you laughed. the day you realized that your bones were not built for curling inwards and all of that howling just derailed the hunt was the day i realized: my god, you were a masterpiece. they have loved your sorrow— they will learn to love your rage instead.

You said: men treat you like this because you want them to. Men look at you in that way because you ask them to. Men send you half-naked pictures of themselves, with their smiles stuck to their faces like bubble wrap, because you gave them your number. Because you told them to. Because this, this hot-breathed complimenting, this scratching on your chest, this burning attention that only comes in periods of loneliness, this is what you asked for. Men like you because you say exactly what they want you to say. Men like you because you moan when they ask you to moan. Men like you because you feel guilty when they want you to, flattered when they tell you to, powerless when they force you to. Men like you because you didn’t know how to put up a fight. Men like you because you said you would leave and didn’t. Men like you because you let them hate you. Men like you because they don’t read your poetry. Men like you because they do, and they think it’s cute. Men like you, but only when they see you as you were created by them.

I am a lioness. I will not cringe for them.