Monster at Twenty-One

She could destroy the world if she wanted to. Wrap its people
around her fingers like black olives –

the way she did when she was young with baby fat.
Running around the yard, an Oleaceous creature on holiday.

(Calculated mischief.)

When her fingers thinned and elongated, woman-like,
the olives would bust when she tried this.

She scoffed at growth. Age as Challenge.
The sobriquet cements: No power in the verse will stop me.

She believes life should be a movie, or a cancelled television drama.

We should always be in love. September should last forever,
and road trips should be beautiful and cathartic – like finding God.
She knows reality is not this.

Would you settle for an early
season of Dawson’s Creek and finishing
a scrapbook? Waiting

for a hiccup – her minute to escape. To leave behind
tired streets and distant friends for a one bedroom in the Village,

or maybe a small town with Southern accents. Anywhere but here.
She walks with a solid step – not heavy, mind you.

It’s a quiet thunder

in the living room. Hey, Gravity? She’s done wit chu. Like a doll
she makes herself. Builds a person from leather boots up. Spouts pop

culture epiphanies before telling your girlfriend to go fuck herself,
then she will sell you a reasonably priced cup of coffee. One sugar?

Or two? You will know her destruction – bra on the stove. Small fire
on the hair straightener. Jeans left in the bathroom like she melted
through the floor. All part of the charm. The charismatic drunk.

She will not go gentle – more like kicking and screaming,
shooting a plastic dart gun. Painfully authentic. Uncategorized.


She’s a monster, you see. She’s not like us.


She’s going to be a firefighter when the floods roll back.
This monster’s going to part traffic like the sea for a fountain soda,

and maybe just the smallest slice of chocolate cream pie.