Jill Mceldowney

Better Talk Now

 

It is difficult to tell a thing that is true all at once.

 

From the beginning, I tried to be nonviolent

 

                             but this year’s length is measured in trauma,

                             the hound changed to wolf,

 

                             to a scythe.

 

Speak

of the devil and he will shatter me at the good

car accident head trauma high.

The body acted upon is the body waiting to preform and

 

I take

 

                             a fistful of your hair in that moth eaten hour against a chain link—

 

                             “Is this what a man does? Is this what a man does?”

​

My giving—

                                                                      exactly what I shouldn’t

                                                                      feels like

             fuck it.

​

There is still plenty of tonight, a part of me that deserves you,

that wants to

​

                            hurt you like I want to hurt—

 

this into a love story.

 

I am just like the dog you have chained

to the front steps;

 

this bitch bites, drags you in your sleep, sets you on fire.