"questions for the woman i was last night"

• "how far have you walked for men who’ve never held your feet in their laps? how often have you bartered with bone, only to sell yourself short? why do you find the unavailable so alluring? where did it begin? what went wrong? and who made you feel so worthless? if they wanted you, wouldn’t they have chosen you? all this time, you were begging for love silently, thinking they couldn’t hear you, but they smelt it on you, you must have known that they could taste the desperate on your skin? and what about the others that would do anything for you, why did you make them love you until you could not stand it? how are you both of these women, both flighty and needful? where did you learn this, to want what does not want you? where did you learn this, to leave those that want to stay?"

"for women who are 'difficult' to love"

• "you are a horse running alone and he tries to tame you, compares you to an impossible highway, to a burning house - says you are blinding him, that he could never leave you, forget you, want anything but you. you dizzy him, you are unbearable, every woman before or after you is doused in your name. you fill his mouth, his teeth ache with memory of taste, his body just a long shadow seeking yours, but you are always too intense, frightening in the way you want him; unashamed and sacrificial"
• "and you tried to change didn't you? closed your mouth more, tried to be softer, prettier, less volatile, less awake. but even when sleeping you could feel him travelling away from you in his dreams, so what did you want to do, love, split his head open? you can't make homes out of human beings, someone should have already told you that. and if he wants to leave, then let him leave. you are terrifying, and strange and beautiful, something not everyone knows how to love"

"our men do not belong to us"

• "then the men we try to love say we carry too much loss, wear too much black, are too heavy to be around, much too sad to love. then they leave, and we mourn them too"
• "i wear my loneliness like a taffeta dress riding up my thigh, and you cannot help but want me. you think it’s cruel how i break your heart, to write a poem. i think it’s alchemy"