The League of Villainesses

NaPoWriMo day 14, poem 14/30. Totally forgot to write yesterday! Today's prompt is about superheros and supervillains, which intrigued me even though I have very little knowledge on the subject. I was googling female supervillains to try to find someone who interested me, but decided that my lack of superbackground made writing about a novice villain a good choice.

The League of Villainesses

This is the arsenal:
longbows and mascara,
whips, lipstick, machine guns,
a hairdryer that shoots flames.
Appearance is key
they tell me.
A villainess must be
a temptress. They show me
shelves of spandex
and leather, buckles,
rhinestones, holsters, let me
run my hands over anything
I desire. A villainess must
hold still they say
while they pin and paint me.
Feel the bile rising.
I am more I say as they
rouge my cheeks and crown
my hair with gold. We
are more they sing back to me
when we are together.

Undone

NaPoWriMo day 12, poem 13/30. I wrote this last night but didn't have an opportunity to post it, so here it is. Inspired by some of the weirder numbers in a burlesque show I went to last night. One part Little Red Riding Hood, one part dissection.

Undone

Beneath this dress
I am a monster.
My body aches
in the strangest places,
skin and shoulders,
heels and hips.
Untie the laces
that hold me together
and let my heart fall
through the slits
in my skin.
I crouch down,
swallow it whole
to keep it safe,
feel it ticking
in my throat.

55 Hours

NaPoWriMo day 11, poem 12/30. I actually wrote this poem for my workshop class, but since nothing else has come to me today I figure I'll post this early draft here. The prompt was to write something about a fallen hero. My choice was obvious: misguided as I might have been, I idolized Britney Spears growing up. This is about the day I gave her up.

55 Hours

Plaintiff Spears lacked understanding of her actions to the extent that she was incapable of agreeing to the marriage.


She wakes in the back of the limo
neck aching, mouth dry,
a man across her lap.
She remembers everything.
This is the day it ends.

There is glitter in her lashes,
chipped polish on her nails
and she knows that she is lost.
In front of the cameras
she sealed her fate last night with a kiss.

No more feigned virginity.
She is everything they wanted:
trainwreck, bimbo, slut.
She can annul her new attachment
but it seems priests are more forgiving

than grocery store magazines.
The last nascent lesbians
take her picture from their lockers,
fold her little girl smile on itself.
This is the day it ends.

Splinter Heart

NaPoWriMo day 10, poem 11/30. Today's prompt is unloving which is just too awesome. Inspired slightly by Once Upon a Time's Snow and Cora.

Splinter Heart

Hand me the scalpel
and I will cut you out.
I slit myself collar
to navel and set
organs on the table.
You are not
in my liver or small
intestine but I deflate
my lungs, squeeze out
the breath you breathed
into me mouth to mouth.
My uterus looks
like a heart
and is red with you
so I leave it on the floor.
It's the real heart
that's the problem.
I must edge my blade
around the splinter of you,
avoid the good
I don't want to spill.
Can I unlove you
and live on? One wrong cut
and I lose all of me,
crumple to the floor,
bile in my chest and ash
in my hands.

Ruby and Platinum

Napowrimo day 9, poem 10/30. Today's prompt was noir as inspiration. They mentioned a two-timing blonde in the description, so that's what I went with. I picture her as Britney Spears crossed with Meghan Ory (hence "ruby and platinum").

Ruby and Platinum

In her grayscale world
she's ruby and platinum.
She doesn't smoke
but every few minutes
she touches two fingers
to her lips. At dusk
she sets out in her slitted dress
and walks beneath the neon
with perpetual motion eyes.
She nurses her gin
in the nearest dive, sits back
to the wall. She palms
a coaster from the bar
and twirls it in long fingers.
She watches for a stranger
in a trench, a sign,
an anonymous kiss.

Under

NaPoWriMo day 8, poem 9/30. Today's prompt suggested using ottava rima. I've been fighting with this poem for a while, trying to find the right form for it, so I thought I'd give ottava rima a go. I ignored the meter (for now, at least) and tried to re-cut and re-rhyme my original poem. I'm missing what I took out to make it fit the eight lines, so maybe later I'll try a second stanza.

The original inspiration was a series of photos in Gaga by Terry Richardson which show her getting ready for her "Born This Way" Grammy performance. I started writing it a few weeks after her recent surgery. In the meantime, I think it's taken on a bit of a life of its own.


Under

They cover your black lips and feed you air,
your outlined eyes gauze-veiled.
You sleep before they cut away your hair,
saw flesh and bone to find whatever ails
the girl stripped down, threadbare,
open, broken, under, frail.
Gone the ink flowers that bloomed at your hips.
The surgeon paints your blood upon her lips.

Knight

NaPoWriMo day 7, poem 8/30. For whatever reason I wasn't in a poetry mood today, but I really want to write every day. This poem is last minute, but I think that some other time I might be able to spiff it up. Today's prompt was to write a poem in which every line is a statement, with the last line being a question. It gave me some cool opportunities for repetition but felt really odd to write.

Knight

I just wanted to protect you.
It sounds like what a villain would say.
I promise I'm not a villain.
Don't mind me.
You didn't mind when I opened doors.
You didn't mind my stockinged December legs.
I didn't mind my stockinged December legs.
When you were cold I held your feet.
When you came to me I waited.
When you came to my bed I waited.
I didn't want you to think I was only after one thing.
I was only after one thing.
That one thing wasn't what you think.
That one thing was an antidote.
I wanted to cure loneness.
The cure tasted bitter.
This love tasted cheap in my mouth.
It's never tasted like that before.
I don't know what went wrong.
You never told me what went wrong.
You never told me what I did wrong.
What did I do wrong?

I Dismiss You

NaPoWriMo day 6, poem 7/30. Today's prompt was to write a valediction, some sort of a goodbye poem. Before I got to writing I saw this lovely poem and decided to take a crack at the song title prompt it was based on. The resulting poem actually works for both prompts in a way.

I have finally given in to my Once Upon a Time obsession, which I've been trying to keep out of my poetry this month. Written from the point of view of my favorite, Evil Queen Regina, as she plans her curse.

I Dismiss You

I sort the cards, match
the fortune to the player,
paint this oil landscape
of my own design.
This one, death will seize.
The day this one will
crumble, spelled
in my hand. Color
my foes in red,
forget them their purpose,
turn life into setback
and ache. In the new
order, I will be your queen,
the only one unscathed.


As for the song titles, I shuffled the playlist that I made last year around this time to help me through a heartbreak. Song title one tells you your subject. Number two tells you something to hide (however you want to interpret that). Within the text of the poem, include the other three titles—word for word.

"I Dismiss You" from The Pirate Queen
"King of Anything" by Sara Bareilles
"Seize the Day" from Newsies
"Purpose" from Avenue Q
"Setback" by Scott Alan

More Than One Way to End a Siege

NaPoWriMo day 5, poem 6/30. I tried my hand at a cinquain, but I really don't like working with meter. I feel too constrained when I have to count my syllables. So I'm leaving the cinquain behind and doing one more spaceship poem. This is the last name that really grabbed me (like the others, from the Twitter account). The metaphor is troubling me but I like the idea.

Also, in reaction to the cinquain, this ended up being a prose poem.

More Than One Way to End a Siege

Leave me under cover of night. When my troops awake they find the gates open, sentries disappeared. Some blame witchcraft but if I find you I won't tie you to the stake.

Break me, take a blade to my armor. Just as I think I'm free, you slam the portcullis between our bodies. You hold my helmet up so I can see myself distorted.

Deny me and it won't be long before I run out of bread and water. Denial was our game once, your hand around my neck, wicked lips counting down the seconds I had to wait. Now no matter how sluttish my begging, you never reach one.

Sorry About the Black Swan

Napowrimo day 4, poem 5/30. Couldn't resist going back to the list of spaceship names. I might need to do more of these.

Sorry About the Black Swan

for Carolina

Sorry about midnight

when I didn't kiss you

since you were drunk.

We slept on the floor

apart. Sorry about the thong

I wore, the presumption.

Sorry about the book

of fairytales on your birthday

and a notebook, about

thinking us the same.

Sorry about seeking you

after just one sight.

Sorry about my vow

to do something each day

that scared me. Sorry

about the Black Swan

and the gumption it gave

me, the confession

I pulled from my skin

like feathers. Alone

that night I arabesqued

to your favorite song.

A Terrible Thing to Do to a Flower

Napowrimo day 4, poem 4/30. Today's prompt is to write a poem based on one of Iain M. Banks' spaceship names. I started with "Preposterous Appendage" from the @cultureshipname Twitter account but ended up changing it to a title from Jeanette Winterson's The Powerbook. Poem based on Lady Gaga's "You & I" video. Still figuring out what to do with the pronouns, but hopefully it isn't too confusing.

A Terrible Thing to Do to a Flower

She's never kissed herself before,
never knew her lips
to be so yielding. She feels
the inertia between her legs,
smiles lewdly at the girl
she's kissed, the painted girl
who looks like her. Her palms
itch for contact, to slap
the imposter and leave
a bruise. Bitch.
The packing tape digs
into her breast, the prosthetic
craning for light,
wanting.

Venezia

NaPoWriMo day 3, poem 3/30. Today's prompt was a sea shanty, which I have no interest in writing, but I figured I could write about the sea. I ended up in Venice instead. Mostly inspired by my own travels but of course I have to credit Jeanette Winterson's The Passion.

Venezia
I belong not underground
but afloat, only water
to edge me in. I walk
this tangled mass of land
and sea with little Italian,
no map. I follow graffiti,
always find your door.
Here we take off
our masks, here each move
is a circle, a wave, a lapping
of wet against skin.
You paint each penumbra
of my body, spelling-
la mia regina,
my queen.

Little White

NaPoWriMo day 2, poem 2/30. Today's prompt was to write lies. I took my initial inspiration from the fairytale "Snow White & Rose Red," and that's where the last line came from.

Little White

Don't place your hand
on the Bible but on
my heart that is always
true. Tell me the whole
and nothing but,
unwind your stories
and I'll lock them safe.
When I watch your mouth
I am looking just for words.
The words I say
have never been spoken
by anyone else,
to anyone else. What
green eyes you have
and what pale skin.
If you let me in
there will be no
transformations, I have
nothing to hide.
I will do you no harm.

Madness

NaPoWriMo day 1, poem 1/30. Today's prompt was to write a poem using the first line of another poem. I flipped through the index of first lines in a few of my poetry books so I could steal a line without being influenced by the context. I ended up choosing the beginning of Yeats' "The Wild Old Wicked Man": "Because I am mad about women." I wrote three fairly distinct drafts and then decided to combine them, so hopefully there's not too much Frankenstein going on.

Madness

Because I am mad about women
I take two white pills in the morning.
They help with the madness
not the women. Because
I am mad about women I said
words I could not understand
that unlaced her fingers
from my hair. Because I am mad
about women I laugh with my mouth
too open, hoping someone
just as mad will crawl into me
and stay. The day I went
from one white pill to two
I turned into a swan, couldn't quiet
my wings. Because I am mad about
women I say in the dark
I love you madly
I love you madly.