Girl(s) With the Nervous System of a Prey Animal

                                                                                                             “A teenage girl is just another sort of game bird.”
                                                                                                                                                                                      -Sarah Barber

For those who are as soft (and still 
frozen) as a porcelain bunny or doll, ribboned up 
with lace, desecration, lip gloss and rage. You were born to be 
gentle, lovergirl, full of glitterglue—pink and raw. I know you can’t help 
but startle when the toast springs or flinch when someone gets 
too close on the sidewalk. I know you want to fertilize your fight 
or flight faster than a racing waterfall runs from the cliff 
it’s connected to, the same way I always am running 
from my body despite it still being attached to me. Be careful 
trusting the moon to fix his lack of guilty conscience, it only turns him more 
wolfish when he sees you. But remember, there are fuck-you-
flowers that bloom at every edge and crease of your skin, blue bruises 
blossoming into contempt, lace that stitches itself into downy 
wings to prove your angelness, ascend and dance 
with the air, but you haven’t been taught 
how, only been left with seam-splitter-mouths 
that clip these feathers and stitch you up with rough-
sewn horns. This is no more flight.