she expresses a dictator's displeasure
at the rapture underneath her feet
men are stepping stones and she's
the stillettos going too steep

please explain, she says
why it's always the fault of the girl
who commits the sin of having darker eyes
because blue people are always beautiful,
they tell her, and the imaginary aryans
will never die

she isn't looking for a saviour
cause boys they want to be your best friend
when all they can see is the slit and skin
they don't love the girls who aren't beautiful outside
but she's beautiful outside just not in
and they don't love her either but they'd
sleep with her
if they didn't know they'd wake up penniless

says, world you forced this upon me
gave me no choice in being branded
conniving barracuda gold-digger bitch well
what would you have me become?
tasteless graceless degraded
work the nine-to-five and see all those generic
faces of people who had people to be
but couldn't because they weren't allowed to believe
that to be what you want to be you have to bleed
just a little
into the devil's chalice and wait and see
says i ain't killed nobody i ain't done much
but broken a few hearts that mend the minute they meet
another pair of heels
and it was a necessary thing
they don't need me but i need them and they can never know
how good i got it because men like that they live to steal
the breath from a working-class woman's throat
all she wants to do is flee and someday she just might
the harder they push the sooner it'll be.

got her hands in his pockets and on his throat
choke the life from the man who will spawn an empire
her womb's rattling in its cage and he keeps her ready
caged tiger in clicking shoes she's afraid of k-mart
because it reminds her of her brown roots
she wants to slam her photograph in the face of
.girl
you want a future, she says, well here it is
you wanna be a model, learn how to suck dick
you say you got a destiny well it isn't in the arms
of your hellbound high school sweetheart
says you can't believe in feminism because all the lies are true
you can't do anything without a man but not to guide you,
only to use

they watch her calves. her seams are perfect.
outside behind the dumpster some boys faux intellectual
over hijacked newports she turns, says sotto voce
in every new year there's one of me

she says she was born of blue, and bitch you better believe
she kills every inch of what commands her to be
no more tainted than the supermarket bread in god's toaster
says she doesn't know how this happened
how she disappoints the world when she fights and herself
when she doesn't

so much she's got yet to learn but she
scratches with a rouge sweet manicure to hook
herself into every opportunity but maybe
baby's holy grade isn't great so she's not on
america's patriotic pristine honor roll
by no fault but and of her own

does that make it wrong for her
to strip her way to the top of the chain
just so she can unlace the steel links
and cut her wrists, indulging in teen trends
wants out wants in wants to be
one of those girls who disappears

because wrapped in the arms of hypocrites she's
sinking teeth into what she does. not. need.
to become.