She calls my arms a crime scene,
licks the blood from my chest,
then listens to the thumping
beneath it.

Yes, she knows what these
hands have done.

She knows I’ve poked holes in the
water of every bed I’ve ever slept in,
knows what my heart looks
like when it’s tired;
the pastel houses lining the streets.
The lipstick shades of the
bored housewives with their
ambrosia salads, stuffing the
mouth of pain until it can’t say their names anymore.

She loves me this many bodies-worth.
She loves me this many mountains.
She stretches across the room,
forgives me without blinking.

I.
they say he was your friend,
a noble warrior and brother in arms,
and you spit the word philtatos at them
with the conviction of Zeus and the anguish of Daedalus.
(most beloved.)

II.
you drag the body of Hector through the streets
(a spectacle to see: bloodied, barren flesh defiling the walls of Troy)
as if it will quench the barbaric blood thirst that pluses through you,
that obscures your vision and chokes you.
as if it will bring him back.
(it won’t.)

III.
aristos achaion!
it is the redundant cry of desperate men,
princes and kings who are forced to watch you descend into madness,
to grasp onto a rotting corpse
and pray for death more times than your heart beats.
(when was the last time you prayed, Pelides?)

IV.
you know Paris has come for you.
you can feel it, the air electrified, as if trying to warn you;
as if you are still a dear prince, as if you are anything without him.
you hear the arrow sailing through open space,
and you think of knobby knees, of fig-stained lips,
of dark, wise eyes and olive skin.
(this, and this, and this.)

these days
aphrodite wears
her hair in a bun,
bleach blonde and wispy,

her eyes are tired
from hours spent online
coaching teen girls 
through tears and trauma,
marking the names
of the souls she will seek,
those she will gladly feed to hades,
 
her shirt reads ‘feminist’
and she cannot count 
the amount of times 
she has had to explain it
to men who profess to know more
than a goddess who has lived
through the end of the world
a hundred times over,
 
see,
as the goddess of love
she knows that loving yourself
is a duty you have to fulfil
first and foremost,
it is your own heart
you must protect
your own skin
you must fight for, 

so as you rip your rights
from those who would destroy you,
know this;
aphrodite stands at your side,
and she loves you.

I say “I am a feminist”
and you laugh
because “Women have rights already”

And while you laugh at this movement
you are laughing at the 15 million girls who will become child brides this year alone
you are laughing at the millions of young girls sold into sex slavery
and at the 70% of women in India who are victims of domestic violence
and at the one in five rape victims in the United States
and at all of the people in the world who are discriminated against
because of something as simple as their gender

and in turn, I laugh at you
for your lack of an understanding
towards a movement that affects you 
and everyone that you know and love

But I do not laugh at your rape jokes 
I do not laugh when you tell me to “Shut up and make you a sandwich”
I do not laugh at your utter negligence to an issue as important as this

Because basic human rights are not funny
The very real experiences of those victimized
solely due to their sex
is not laughable
The suffering of my entire gender
is not a fucking joke that you are allowed to make.

in the absence of speech
we bake bread.
we slow dance.
we kiss with 
our eyes.

instead: our hands
kneading love into
winged bellyaches.

instead: our knees
perfect robins’ eggs
blushing into orbit.

instead: our mouths
with nothing left
to say.

WITCHES

do not let anyone
convince you a Witch
is something to fear. she is a female
with power, the healer, the magician
persecuted for being both woman
and extraordinary.
the men panic for their seat in the
castle. they do not know how to share
a throne. when you cast a spell,
they laugh, but make no mistake:
predators will cut off your hands
if you prove them to be useful.
they will cut off your hands
if they decide you are capable
of starting a war.
but you are all bite, claws, steel, filed teeth
and jaws, scratch, buckle, sparkling fists.
there is a fire. let them cower. howl louder.
see the wonder-girl who can swallow lit
matches, who manages to survive in spite
of the fifteenth street-side threat this week.
boy at a party jokes that women
are an endangered species. once,
I met a ten-year-old who had to cover
his little brothers eyes while watching their father
beat their mom to death. sometimes, I am all too
aware of the obstacle course getting home safe
at night is like. I have a weapon in my purse
that looks like a friendly kitten keychain.
I have heard the stories of brave women
made into headlines made into such-a-
shame’s. I can’t say I haven’t been warned.
tonight, you are angry and
outside, it is storming.
use your voice like a flamethrower,
a siren. they are afraid of whatever
this heat is coming from
and who she came here for.
who do you know named extinct?