i am licking lemon custard off your cheekbones

and you are telling me about rupi kaur,

about how she changed your life,

and i am thinking

about lemon custard

and milk and honey

and how she changed nothing

but your Instagram feed.

 

feminist poetry

is like breakfast for dinner.

two good things at once

doesn’t always double the good,

sometimes makes your stomach queasy

‘cause its seasoned with guilt.

buttery, mapley, patriarchal, millennial guilt.

 

the custard’s wiped clean

and i have never been this starved for words

so i am venturing toward your lips,

but you turn your head

and breathe out poetry

decorated with words so hollow

i could string them onto thread,

into a plastic necklace.

 

my hunger shakes my bones.

 

 

 

 

to hell with form, convention, critics, centuries of applicability.

to hell with Shakespeare.

updated by @ceri-shaw: 11/24/19 06:16:51PM