Member Poem

Today
I found the
perfect monster.

She was flawlessly
self entitled like a Barbie
complete with Malibu car and keys.

Her hair cost more than groceries.
Her nails cost as much as electricity.
Her clothes could have been a way out.

Typical monster, it was her right to have
everything. Her right that I should have
nothing. Her right to be a typical monster.

She thinks there is no judgement for the
beautiful. Those with funds get to be fun
with no consequence. She doesn’t think.

Her party and my parting coincided when
a text, a beer and three “of the red ones”
hit her all at once, and then she hit me.

She thinks she left me behind, bleeding
and forgotten. A sin on the sidewalk. An
“oopsie” for therapy. She doesn’t think.

I will be the reminder in her perfect color
coordinated house with the current year
incriminating car with matching accessories.

I’ll show her that beauty is only skin deep
by taking hers. That consequence can
follow you home. That she had no right.

I will leave her to hang in her bay window
soft skin turning hard and brown in the sun.
Like a cocoon full of inner monster. Like
a regretful chicken coming home to roost.

There she will wither, the strips of her
becoming leather to match her couch
and it will be her right to rot, finally the
Monster Apparent. And my right to live.