After Kim Addonizio’s “What Do Women Want?”
Poetry, Robin Percyz
I want skin tight prowls, naked
thighs that meow on streets in micro mini
skirts like I’ve invited you in my bedroom
when I didn’t.
And I want you to claw it off
in your head
and make me almost
afraid.
Just the tip
of rough, controlled chaos in sheets of a bed
I only unmake for you
with my eyes.
I have a craving for danger in costume that remembers
the bodies it’s been worn by.
The body does a great job keeping the score.
It’s kind of like daddy issues
if you had a bad daddy
or how we repeat the cycle
of laundry.
Dirty, filthy.
I wear the same tattered clothes because it’s what I have,
what I know fits
on top of me,
what I think I deserve.
I’ll redo the load and rinse
the wounds
from hands breaking
and entering
to hands that knock now.
I want skin tight safety,
I want to wear it outside and see you hunting me,
without stuffing heavy panting deep
in my purse,
without my hands squeezing, fisting
keys that never wanted to be used.
Robin Percyz (she/her) is a queer writer living in the New York Metropolitan region, spending the majority of her career as a Content Manager. She has overseen content staff at online marketing and website design firms, designed weekly newsletters for a Modern Orthodox High School, and has served as a member of The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research. She was invited to present her piece, “Boxing and Bleeding” at their Conference “Re: Cycling” in 2011 where Gloria Steinem was in attendance. Robin was a competitive amateur boxer for four years, fighting twice in the New York Daily News Golden Gloves Competition. She has recently discovered her love for writing poetry, after years of admiring it as a reader. If she can help others feel visible through her work, she will consider that success.
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