Tag: poetry

You’re like a strange and very strict diet;
I’m learning to obey and be quiet.
Your love, my lover, my squire,
Is a trial by iron and fire.

You forbid me to sing and to smile,
And praying’s been banned for quite a while.
As long as we don’t separate,
You think everything’s great!

So, a stranger to everything,
I live and no longer sing.
You might just as well
Forbid me heaven and hell.

“You’re Like a Strange and Very Strict Diet,” Anna Akhmatova

have you considered that maybe i am not pleasant?

maybe i wear lipstick so that
you will see my pretty pink mouth
wrapping around a coffee cup lid
and be distracted enough not to notice
that i am intelligent and powerful;
a threat.

maybe i draw my brows into high arches
so you will look at my unimpressed skepticism
and overlook my spiteful glare
as a trick of my silly, girlish routine.

maybe i wear my heels so high and thin
so that i grasp your attention with the sway of my hips
as i listen to the click-clack-click against the floor
and know that if you should try to overpower me
i walk on sharpened knives.

maybe when i laugh at your worthless jokes
i am really baring my fangs
waiting patiently for the day
that i sink them into your neck.

i am not made of porcelain pleasantries;
you will find that these things are my armor
to keep you at a distance
so you do not step on me and shatter
my fragile control.

i am not a husk — i am not wilting.
i am turning my head
so that the fire blazing through my eyes
does not catch on the accelerant of your sweaty palms
and burn your bones to dust.

i am not your pretty girl;
i am a fury, a faerie, a phoenix —
a forest of werewolves and wendigos
that will carve out your chest
so that the next time i paint my pretty pink lips
i will taste the copper tang of your dying breaths.

R.K., I Am The Wolf Only Barely Contained (via jameskerk)
Source: clizzy

Women like me do not fall gracefully,
we stumble over our spines, trip over
our vowels, and collapse into your arms.

Our hearts are open books,
Russian novels containing fifty pages
on the way your voice drifts across
the telephone wires each night.
Our hearts are first drafts,
unedited verses about each and every
person we have ever loved: the stranger
on the subway, the girl who gave us a balloon,
the boy who stole our virginity
but not our heart.

Women like me will love you from a distance
of a thousand syllables while laying in your bed,
we will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible,
and when we leave you will finally understand
why storms are named after people.

Katrina, M.K.