LUCES

Backed into a corner…
Guys are always so much bigger, no?
It’s almost unfair.
Dad buys you self-defense so you don’t get cornered—
or at least that’s what he hopes.
But if the world really cared,

they’d kill the problem at the root,
not pluck the stem to regrow,
blaming silken, flowing, sumptuous hair
instead of wrists pinned like shackles behind you—
a problem Daddy wouldn’t know
and that you’d never dare to share.

Well, no means no—
except today.
What do moms teach their sons?
Eventually, I go.
If I maim my face,
next time, I won’t have to run

because they’ll stop pursuing—
finally leave me alone.
Nasty boys and their mindless heads…
I’d rather be refuse not worth using
than have this be all I know.
And they wonder why love is dead…