"Today I Wake up More Butterfly Than Woman" by Amber Decker
 

I wear a sundress,

pink lipstick.

I paint my fingernails

bright as jewels.

 

Today, I am a rainbow

of possible.

 

But when I go to pay

for a cup of coffee

at the Jersey convenience store

along Highway 35,

 

the unshaven male clerk

who smells like a high school gym locker

during football season

 

asks me through his crooked teeth

if I'm the kind of girl

who likes anal sex.

 

I grin back at him,

all stinger, all fang,

 

all Venus-flytrap wet

with digestive juices.

I say,

 

"I've tried it. But I don't like

getting shit on my dick."

 

And his tongue withers between his lips

like the dried-up husk

of a locust on a mimosa branch:

 

a dead sack of discarded skin

gone silent

among a sea of pink flowers.

 

I feel that any man

who finds such joy

in harassing women

 

should be forced to experience

a woman

at least once in his life ––

 

who is already sick of his shit,

and will not hesitate to stick

the last word

 

right through his puffed-up

little chest

 

like a motherfucking pin.