Emily

In the chapel,

in a bedroom,

in an alley late at night.

Always facing an inflated

godlike

version of some guy.

But as a girl you do what you need to survive.

You open wider, take the body.

Thank your father, you’ve been naughty.

2 Hail Marys, 20 lashings.

“I’ve been sent to punish you for daring to exist.

You will never know a love as meaningful as this.”

I’ve memorized

the lines

since I was 10.

From the Bible,

from the playbook,

from the magazines for men.

If you should mess it up, you’ll start again.

But, still, they only want

the women

they condemn.

I think that I’d have too much fun in hell.

With the pagans

and the hedonists

and sapphics there as well.

Purgatory seems the better fit

I can’t stand waiting in the corner,

but I do love being hit.

There’s not a torture you can prescribe

that I wouldn’t find

a way to like.

Every single second I’m alive

I’m sharpening an axe I’d like to grind.

“I was sent to punish you

for the way I was designed.

You will never know a love

that you fear more than mine.”

The Poison Garden

Established in 2005 by the Duchess of Northumberland. The garden contains over 100 deadly and hallucinogenic plants. 

’I wondered why so many gardens around the world focused on the healing power of plants rather than their ability to kill… I felt that most children I knew would be more interested in hearing how a plant killed, how long it would take you to die if you ate it and how gruesome and painful the death might be.’