Erasure of the Femme Fatale

* am burned at the stake of cursed femininity. 
Something of a goddess and a martyred myth. 
* suppose those are one and the same. 
You juxtapose ** between a revolution 
and a sexualized saint; ** faults stew 
in your distinctions. Eclectic yet not esoteric, liberating 
yet unoriginal. * am the owner of your forbidden fantasies 
in which you writhe within. * cough up truths 
and you cure ** with injections of self-disgust. 
* was never meant to hate the body that is full of grace. 

Castrate ** duplicity and press ** thin 
like a plucked clover. * can be the lucky charm you call 
karmic superstition. You put a bounty on ** beauty 
and disintegrate ** intelligence. Then 
stuff ** in the box with Schrodinger’s unfed cat. 
Forever have men condemned ** sexuality. 
Forever will man misunderstand ** existence. 

* age and wrinkle with the pride you have stolen 
and write until language reaches the rim of a red cup. 
Hold ** by the waist and be cautious with ** liquids. 
When you spill and blame ** for being 
the color of vanity, remember the stain is all of 
what’s left of ** purpose; a guilt for embodying 
the blood of your unforgiving religion. 
Taxidermy ** into the woman of a dream you finish to. 
Are you embarrassed by the taste of ** pheromones 
or the lingering perfume of ** primal musk? 
You don’t dare to trap and brag, 
but fetishize ** in every manner. 

* reveal my alkaline cadence and ionized visions. 
* am growing into the olive tree you seize with wrath 
and cauterize the wounds of ** ancestor’s beliefs. 
Peace be with ** in the embers of ** being. 
* hope when you wring out the smoke in your fabric 
that the water seeps into the heart of the soil, 
and * am reborn with the strength of a sword, 
and store ** empathy in the golden handle 
that Joan so graciously fought and died with.

            (on my golden-- 19th-- birthday)