Every bill passed
Every law enforced
And every punished person
And every broken door
Every wall built
Every motion managed
And every battered woman
And every mind damaged
Every code of conduct
Every regulation
And every callous worker
And every police station
Every constitution
Every consequence
And every carried hate crime
And every document
Every proclamation
Every orange dictator
And every child taken
And every righteous debater
All of them have suffered
All of them are dead
And all of them are falling
And all of them have bled

Her heart is clean
It's white
Like rabbit
It's clear
From bad habits
She is the Lily
Of this filthy Valley.

If her heart
Dared to get a bit
Of filth anyway
She would be shammed
She might as well wither away
The world is no place
For a perfect white lily
Why should we judge
All humans are silly
Even the purest girl out there
Can make mistakes.

When the marriage ends,  
and the child is still too small to understand  
what's been torn,  
why is it that the man tells his friends—  
"She was crazy."  
"She never got off her ***."  
"She was too emotional."  
"She never took care of the kids."  

And no one asks him,  
"Why did you stay?"  
Why did you have children with her?  
Why did you marry her in the first place?  
Why does she have full custody now?"  

No one dares to ask,  
because they already know.  

Men stay—  
for the comfort of control,  
for the invisible chains that bind women  
with babies,  
with promises that were never kept.  

They know,  
the way a child knows their mother’s touch  
but never her heart.  

The man knows his power in her silence,  
in her labor,  
in her sacrifices—  
the ones no one sees but her.  

And yet, when she walks away, they ask her,  
"Why did you stay so long?"  

Because they know the cost of leaving  
was more than she could afford.  

But still she walked.  

Still she left.  

Why did she stay?  

For the love she thought might change him.  
For the chance that maybe—just maybe—  
he’d become the man she believed in.  
For the hope that her children would have a father who cared.  

But he didn’t.  

He stayed because he knew—  
the house wouldn’t run without her.  
The kids wouldn’t be fed,  
the bills wouldn’t be paid,  
and the image of a family was more important than the truth.  

Men stay because it’s easier to claim a woman  
than to be the man they promised to be.  

And when she leaves, they don’t ask themselves,  
"Why couldn’t I be better?"  

They just ask,  
"Why did she stay so long?"

Fellow men –
man to man,
once a boy to
another boy...

I beg you,
please make your
intentions clear...

For we all sleep at night –
and in that sense don’t
need more dreams
being sold to
our women

those are false dreams –

And they will still be celebrated by the people around you as "good men" while your blood drips from their teeth.

Were you looking for someone to love?
Somewhere to sink your teeth?
Little strangles of baby's breath,
excited in the shadows.
An epiphany to undo?
Was I so easy?

Where I come from the dead watch over us;
we sing our names until they're one.
The women hunt with dogs and carry guns,
and the stars shimmer at night.
I forgot all this power inside me.

A shock of flatteries—
the peacock feathers of psychopaths.
Poisonous things are colorful,
flowers full of hooks, hot pearls around the neck;
love bombs of mass destruction.
We danced and danced around the shiny red button,
high on the dark, afraid to see the light.

Remember the pink rabbits,
throwing them at my feet,
their veiny little ears?
Killed what you could to frighten me!
And the honey *** of promises?
Using the bees against me.
My own ***, really?
You couldn't get the honey;
the honey was a lie.

Just because you want it doesn't make it so.
Did no one ever tell you no?
You think you hold the power
when you take the queen—
you wish... chess is a man's game.
Infinity can shift in a moment.
I have become bored of bee stings,
and violent kisses on the mouth.

Clarity is harder than denial.
I admit, it took me a while.
Fixation, denigration, isolation,
then utter destruction.
War is a breathtaking art.
I stand in awe of your strategy.
I gave you my sweet little head on a platter.
Perversions burned away the sugar and spice.

But I am not made of everything nice.
When I am myself,
I do not lie down with predators.
I'm made of mountain lions who turn and turn in circles,
churning to butter at my feet.
Where is the cream?
You're the spoiled milk, spoiled brain.
What made you so insane?

I fell for the uninvited vampire,
the blood-******* thief.
How dare you terrify me with your dogs?
I feed them honey—a gift from the bees.
Allegiances change, Shadow Man.
You can't come to my window anymore.
Now your dogs will **** for me.

Am I still pretty?

I call on my grandmothers, collecting the pooled power.
I am back, a dripping goddess with guard dogs,
not safe to touch or get too close.
A weapon of mass destruction,
I control my own atoms, a nuclear flinch.
Your cold war turns and turns, in circles at my feet.
I lick the butter from my fingers.
Do you still like me?
Am I still easy?

You are the epiphany.

My mother handed me power with a crown,
regal and beautiful.
She birthed me—
breech, rounded head.
I became unstuck and in the world all at once.

She slid me courage with my grandmother's pearl-handled revolver,
slapping me conscious,
a stark look at the world men built.
Deliberate moves, eye contact,
teeth bared.

Memories passed through a bleeding heart.
The women before us cut off their right ******* like Amazons—
gashes of emotion she couldn't stop.
I stopped.

I cannot be shook or unmade,
fired with clay and star metals.
Steady, steady stayed.
I bend with the wind.

The queens in my blood are at home in me.
I swoop down, landing with both feet.
There is fire in my ground.

Am I too much?
Hard to swallow, a bitter pill?
Am I raw and unprocessed,
Undiluted, concentrated,
Too spicy for your stomach?

Good.

Choke on it.

I won’t cut myself
To bite-size pieces.
I am not a convenient product.

My feathers are not plucked,
My hair is unshorn,
My feet are unshod,
And the muscle of my thigh
Is for kicking, not meat.

Do you not like the taste?
Poor spoiled glutton,
You cannot acquire it.

Find your refined sugar elsewhere –
I do not come pre-packaged.