Lesson on Men

Octavia Ikard

Being friends with men always ends because of how it started The womb

Where a man learns how many parts of a woman he can devour

How easy her flesh glides through his knife

Whether or not her struggle salted the breast milk which he drinks with no acid refluxed thank you

I am not a woman And yet I wonder

How you managed to boil me down to syrup in the bottom of the pot

When did your perception turn(ed) enzyme, begin dismantling me Into parts I am and parts you could suck cartilage out of to fill up your belly

What about my art didn’t inject home into you? Am I that complicit in the binary, slack-tongued in the arts that my personality wasn’t portfolioed in the first page of your esteem

I guess I just wanted you to choose me over stomach growls nurture a friendship That won’t cave into Your small intestine