I’ve been on my knees since I was 5.
In the chapel,
in a bedroom,
in an alley late at night.
Always facing an inflated
godlike
version of some guy.
But as a girl you do what you need to survive.
You open wider, take the body.
Thank your father, you’ve been naughty.
2 Hail Marys, 20 lashings.
“I’ve been sent to punish you for daring to exist.
You will never know a love as meaningful as this.”
I’ve memorized
the lines
since I was 10.
From the Bible,
from the playbook,
from the magazines for men.
If you should mess it up, you’ll start again.
But, still, they only want
the women
they condemn.
I think that I’d have too much fun in hell.
With the pagans
and the hedonists
and sapphics there as well.
Purgatory seems the better fit
I can’t stand waiting in the corner,
but I do love being hit.
There’s not a torture you can prescribe
that I wouldn’t find
a way to like.
Every single second I’m alive
I’m sharpening an axe I’d like to grind.
“I was sent to punish you
for the way I was designed.
You will never know a love
that you fear more than mine.”
- “God Fear a Woman” 2023
