Every morning, I wake up wishing,

I was as tough as I pretend to be,

Wash my face, forget my name, repeat;

I wish I was stronger than a man.

 

Every morning, I look out the window,

Sigh, and ask myself all the wrong questions:

What day is it? What's the point?

No one answers, and I shut the window.

 

I lie on the floor, leave my body, and walk,

Through rows of identical houses, fortresses,

Crafted hurriedly from plaster and blissful ignorance,

I peer through smoky windows:

 

Where bottles of hairspray stand rigidly,

Making dinner for a man who will never love them,

No matter how long their nails and insecurities grow,

Adorned with acetone and unchecked by nature and God.

 

She will look forward, be his vacuum cleaner,

Put away, all nice and tidy, until he wants something;

Have his children and his brand stamped,

Into silicon-padded hip bones for life.

 

I look at a prison, of which I would rather die,

Than be a part of; prey to a household name,

The brutality of a man who has never been poisoned,

In his lifetime. No; But the day is young yet...

 

How much abuse can make the meek wild?

Why am I unallowed to be vengeful? Or even angry?

How am I to have faith in karma when, every day,

I see the same disposable brides, leaving their keepers unscathed?

 

How am I to believe in divine retribution,

Whilst I watch these men on the news,

Meandering by on probation, their smug expression,

Rotting holes in my television screen?

 

The viscera they drag behind them, young ragdoll,

Void of expression or autonomous reason,

Dead to the world outside of her own vicious sentencing,

“If he really did it, that’s between him and God,”

 

Every morning I say a name

One whose presence I search for in the news handles

The being who destroyed me, in every sense of the word,

I wait for his name, but karma never comes.

 

And so I lie in bed, still waiting.