First, clip off her wings
Tie her to a chair
Paint her nails
And make sure to tighten her waist
What about a corset or a pretty choker
Make up is what she needs
Deeds she needed to fulfill
Shave her manly hair and her head towards the ground
Bring out those lashes
Those empty smiles
Afterall who would like a lady ?
Who doesn't know how to please at all?
Perhaps teach her to be dependent
Bear some children
Princess at 17
Cries and screams to be hidden
Tell her how to flutter her eyes
To catch some attention she needs
Her life born to be
Some patriarchy she was meant to knead
And yet her heart doesn't smile
I wonder why
Isn't she now the perfect lady ?
To be adorned in precious gems
A gift to present
An angel with beauty
But no self respect
In Autumn chain edges destroy the trees' only air
She, while in their bark's raw breath infuse,
As if leaves underdone weren't truly everywhere
On Autumn's corset; within, her body's womb
A stolen breath
Gripped onto her corset
A leaf's first memory lasts first
The oak's years cut from giving her birth
She left in its ground spaces worth
falling for
The lustrous perfume bottle
avec neck spritzer and bottom caudal
With hexing brio it holds her captive
Pure rapture is sexually attractive
A woman’s torso a glass statuette
dressed in a golden chic corset
An old hippy scarf suspends on the wall
Her ‘Eau De Joy’ is kitschy after all
Shimmies into mid-calf western boots
She rifles through sequined body suits
Last touches of an aromatic scent
she deems the fragrance extravagant
Lurid lemon zest smacks of old school
Blithely vivacious leads them a drool
Juicy sweet notes from cleavage to chin
A whirlwind of hazy mist he’s in
Wild at heart with beats that throttle
A burning desire from a perfume bottle
I wore my mind like a corset—tight, laced, unseen—
while the world asked me to smile with lipstick teeth
and stir the soup without stirring the storm inside.
There were mornings I woke as if embalmed,
already dressed in the hush of death's silk slip,
no reason, no riot—just a fog that would not lift.
The walls of my room pulsed like veins
and the mirror whispered lies in a female voice:
You are failing. You are too much. You are not enough.
I was the soft thing breaking beneath
a century of silence stitched into my sex,
taught to hush the howl and cradle the ache.
My hands shook when folding towels.
My heart stuttered at the scent of soap.
There was no name then for the madness.
Just "hysteria," like a curse tucked under my skirt,
and doctors who told me to marry or pray.
No pills yet. No lifeboats. Just poems or the end.
So I chose the door
that closed softer than the others.
Not for drama—
but for rest, for mercy,
for the silence to finally match
the silence within me.
If I'd been born later, maybe
there'd be lithium instead of letters.
But time gave me verse,
and verse gave me wings too torn to fly.
Written: August 07, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Mark Toney
***********
Corset of steel tightens—ratified pain,
Vestigial breath trapped in ischemia thrall.
The ductile hope failed to placate
This Pyrrhic ache, this woebegone gall.
A sojourn in the squalor of soul,
Where sylphlike dreams maunder, downcast.
Ogle the embers of the miraculous nexus—
A seraphic visage lost, quickly.
Vivacious once, now virile with woe,
Panacea tastes of pabulum, slipshod, and cold.
Tinkling memories coruscate as zeugma—
Bright, yet untoward, they never hold.
Quixotic penchant for connection,
Grasping too late the nebula beneath.
What puissance is this—this throe, this tumult—
When tulle-wrapped love meets a gyre of grief?
Ululation beneath pavonine skies,
Adumbrate every glance, every sigh.
Crimson weave keeps a skirt in place,
Valuable, stained, adorned, and slain.
Branches like bars
separate me from skies
birds in flying
alight
Sung out of this
feathered corset —
each tongue tight,
for night's
Unseen way up —
alone, lay
me down with
my unseen streak
Their skeleton
unlike my wings;
God, they
sing —
Eyes nest
nowhere —
I remember morning
by heart
Red chested,
I'm blinded
by the percussions
who can see dark —
Oh Discordia
Beneath the sun, a rider bold.
Naked in this story told.
A tale of dreams and tales untold.
Listen to their future unfold.
The horse did stumble, the girl did fall.
A corset whore, no clothes at all.
They slid as one, through an abandoned mall.
No purchase on the floor at all.
Through this delirious dance, they shared a dream.
Mrs.Sliptoe, was her name, a future queen.
While Bammy whinnied
*neiiigh!! NEIIIGH* "Forevermore take my hoof, off to a place unseen".
In a feverdream, they wed that day.
A union strange, in disarray.
The horse and girl, a bond surreal.
A fleeting love, yet beastially real.
They ruled as one over the denizens of discordia.
Oh discordia.
Moon spills over like expresso coffee,
withheld in a pitch pitcherlike corset —
Where long her skin's lantern once mothered me,
over tonight are but marble shadows,
Craters' paled apparition in my sky —
those cold breasts now an invisible blur;
This adrenaline dark when light's in wane,
virgin drinks in her cup's phase finally;
Still through a kohl tongue she kisses my hate —
this moon reads newly with every pause.
His tie knotted tight at the collar
pinches the neck, he’d love to holler
Her corset pulled tighter than a drum
she’d like to scream, but can only hum
No sacrifice too great, who worships fashion
midnight hour aches and pains ~ faces ashen
a stark hue rainbow
over the cemetery —
light dark lace corset
the whether vain points
every witch way dough current
corset whence it came
planely thin king back
eye'd midday said pleas tank ewe
shrimps tip earn tie knees
Legs weak my sun came home
n eye want ewe two meat hymn
he arose at don sew hill bee hear
two sea ewe, different den bfour
he's had some boy.
He's a pansy, is he?
*a bit tricky but doable. more will be added...
Red rose corset, black trim,
dress leaves little to imagination,
light lace to hide my secrets,
choker with meteor made black rose pendant.
garnet rose corset
cherry blossoms fade away
siren’s serenade
In shadows draped, my night empress does glide,
Amidst the moonlit meadow’s misty sigh,
Her raven locks, a midnight river’s tide,
Flow ‘neath the moonbeam’s haunting silver sky.
Her eyes, orbs of obsidian’s deep spell,
Entrap all who meet her amorous gaze,
No roses match her cheeks’ alluring swell,
In twilight’s grasp, a gothic love ablaze.
Her lips, a sinful shade of deepest night,
To taste the poison from her tempting kiss,
A venomous allure, a dark delight,
Her pale milky skin, passion’s subtle bliss.
In corset tight, she holds her lustful spell,
To love her is to court the fire of hell.
I used to have a green corset.
I wore it when I was young and sexy.
My husband got crazy when I had it on.
The kids never knew; I did not advertise it.
It was fancy with lace, and lots of pretty satin.
There might have been tiny pearl buttons on it.
It was really something.
Not comfortable, but went well with high stockings.
I think back on it and smile.
No idea what happened to it or why,
but there was a time I was a fox, truly a sexy wife.
When I think corset, my imagination remembers.
I don’t dare even say “corset” to my husband.
Because he remembers too….
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