I did not turn rapture
when hell made its home in my womb.
Hades swooned over the wreckage
placing a bow on top for good measure.
Legend says I was more myth, than anything,
searching for definition after
too familiar body made drunk bed
of my flesh, pinning down
my Velcro limbs. The only choice I had
was to rip them off. Or you would
play god, play surgeon, blade in hand,
ready to make a mess of my flesh
curl me ribbon, hands to fold me over;
turning pages of my fable
writing your own chapter of monsters.

You said all folklores have truth,
that werewolves are disguised as broken bodies.
Well five full moons have passed
and I still howl when I see you.
My muscles remember dehydration
when they cringe at the memory
of your frame perched on top of mine
wielding weaponry like promises,
like you’ve been training to build
cemeteries inside of people,
calculating the angles of hips,
leaving shrapnel you can’t dig out.
I thought if I made myself small,
the knife wouldn’t find my skin
and you wouldn’t find me either.
But I learned that begging purge of my innards
does not extract the emptiness,
but further entices it. So I drip sweat,
clenching my gut in order to make
a lean body rather than to brace myself
when I see male hands. Flexing muscle
metal armor to conceal my wish
to be Medusa; I am half way there,
she was ***** too, only I wasn't in a temple.

I’ve been told to find god,
but do you think if I crane my face up
eager child toward Him, He will treat me
like you, like you did.
I pray my God
is a fearless woman, a fierce Atalanta
daughter of Iasus, who begged for son
out his wife’s hips. Daughter of proud ***,
proud ***** and fertile garden,
left to die on a mountaintop
claiming fragile She. Throwing dirt down
the mouth of God, Atalanta learned to hunt
and fight like a bear
like a woman, surviving the death wish of male.

This nightmare of She
my death wish from male. Remembering
the pin ***** of sharp knife against my throat,
I had no other choice than to become my own edge.
I made my body sharp, turned every bone
into a quick “no” and instinctual incision.
I want to be cutthroat woman, standing tall
and vicious, never allowing my memory
to become deja vu again and again. I am not
a story with sequels. I am the legend.