My grandmother always told me

You must bend a will before you break it.

Tell a pretty boy he’s big and strong

And ask for him to save you from yourself.

String him along.

Make him wish he never crawled out of the fleshy, slimy dungeon of his mother’s womb.

She carved her insignia on many men’s tombs.

A true black widow.

For everything she touches,

Or has touched

Or will touch,

Dies.

My heirloom is not the sapphires for eyes.

I do not have generational wealth to share.

But my legs are good for more than running.

I can touch my toes to my ears

Like a swan gliding over troubled waters.

Aerial acrobatics,

The swing of my hips.

I can taste the lies on my own tongue.

Bitter sap oozing from our roots.

And because we are intertwined by nature

She chose not to nurture.

Instead threw her daughters to the wolves

And fed vines of grapes to her only son,

The king of cowards.

She said destroy the enemy from within his own castle

And bestow his crown of thorns

Weaved together by the stems of the harshest truth:

Our femininity is the serpent’s charade.