I am barely one millimeter tall
dragging my body limp across
the sidewalk and I try my best not to make eye contact any contact
with those glaring flashlights rising from the dead off their hard-helmeted heads
I'm still trying to keep mine twisted at one-hundred-eighty degrees
but stuck in the bulls-eye of a man-made hurricane I wouldn't mind hearing a snapping neck any neck.
One of the hell-bent helmets removes itself to reveal a heavy-set sweating neck
the ******* a skateboard and I recoil synonymously at the sight of too many men too tall
it's seventy-five out but it's beginning to feel negative twenty degrees
I walk as quickly as my frost-gnawed legs allow me to move across
this soup line but they're feeding the wrong kind of hungry who wait for their ***** coins to flip heads
to see who goes first to play tackle-the-red-flags with little girls and the rules don't prohibit contact.
I can't imagine these helmets in human form not even when they ask for my number to keep in contact
I think of the time I was sent home for possessing tempting shoulders and a somehow sultry neck
all I see are claw machines and me, a come-here-doll, resisting the balance being ripped from my head
I forget about pacing myself on the ledge of this concrete just so I can stand tall
I hear the voice of an ex-friend who moved across
town tell me that you "just have to be smart", but you don't learn morals from earning degrees.
I'm thinking about the degree
of which it would mean if I were to reverse the prey predator roles and dare to make contact
blood sharing the same bed with safety sparks a flame across
my brain, I don't want to imagine trembling while holding this pocket knife over the apples of their necks
but I am a no choice girl because every time my mother calls she warns me that I'm not tall
enough to even chop the branches from their heads.
The fifth one in line yells something at me about giving head
silently I measure the trajectory of getting the hell out of this corner the exact angle the degree
what lie is there to tell that is tall
enough that they won't be able to see the panic beneath my contacts
I swat away the possibility of nearby lips staining bruises onto my neck
I keep the idea of my big-knuckled boyfriend like pepper-spray in my back pocket waiting at the street across.
Hey *****, you seem a little cross
you shouldn't dress the way women dress to turn heads
one day you might make a man break his neck.
It finally began nearing seventy-five degrees
again as I fumbled through my contacts
dialed the first boy I knew, doubling as the tallest.
I'm on the acceptance stage of mourning the fact that I'll never be tall enough to come across as mean when I come in contact
with non-human beings willing to burn holes in the back of girls heads at four-hundred degrees, who put their ****** trophies on the back-burner as long as it means getting some neck.
