Bad Girl Love

you always liked slicked, slender arms around you
and torn jeans from the old movies, which you’ve
stashed beneath the mattress, along with empty
cigarette packets and mutilated pulp magazines.
the men you loved took your childhood in exchange.
in your dreams, you were a rockstar, a wild-eyed thing.

in the novel that you’ll never ever write, cinderella misses
curfew to hook up with the prince who reaches under
her mattress-gown to find a barren planet. she’ll later
trap her stepmother and sisters inside an oven, along
with the glass slippers and bake them for thanksgiving.
and then, the men shall write stories of her terrible majesty.

at night, you wear lipstick and a see-through white
petticoat that smells of stale love and sleep awake
on a mattress below which you’ve hidden your heart.
you are singing cinderella’s song in a way men never
do, even as werewolves or starved princes eye you
from the shadows. your smoke rings are little tiny hearts.

 

 

About the Poet:
Archita Mittra is a wordsmith and visual artist with a love for all things vintage and darkly fantastical. She occasionally practices as a tarot card reader.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/archita_mittra
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/camelot_queen1996/
Website: https://thepolyphonicphoenix.wordpress.com/

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