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Everyone Hates My Poetry
Everyone hates my poetry
Because it doesn’t wear makeup.
Because it stares too long,
or not long enough.
Because it mentions the body
like a room that remembers
every man who left his name in dust.
Because it’s too sad,
too loud,
too holy,
too raw—
because it does not ask permission
to bleed
where others would politely weep.
They say I should whisper.
I scream in stanzas instead.
Line breaks like broken bones —
each one healed wrong on purpose.
I rhyme “fxxk” with “forgiveness”
and call it a sacrament.
I flirt with ghosts.
I give grief a seat at the table.
I write what I can’t confess.
And then I press send.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
?
Go your own way, they say.
But I was never theirs to lose.
I won’t be your throat,
your mouth,
your Sunday-quiet muse.
Dance in the avalanche —
I’ll be drinking full-blooded wine.
You butter your toast,
I’ll bleed ink and call it divine.
I’m Dracula,
you’re limpets —
clinging to shores of should.
Sinister mercy monsters
with teeth made of wood.
You won’t take mine.
I’ve bartered them
for metaphor.
For myth.
For the kind of flame
that never asks to be understood.
I sit on a throne
shaped like an electric chair,
burning truth until
only the bones of beauty remain.
You?
You live in living rooms.
You collect pretty things.
I braid your betrayal
into a lei of lunacy —
my madness in bloom.
Say I’m too old.
Too female.
Too much.
There’s something in the water.
Damn right.
I am the water.
I merge with ocean light.
The moon kisses me goodnight.
Why do I need your approval to feel seen?
Must just be a throwback trauma dream.
Your eyes — not galaxies,
but black holes,
sucking the light from my becoming.
I offered constellations,
you brought collapse.
But still—
I orbit my own flame.
Still, I rise in ruin’s dress,
sequined with scars.
I chew the fat
with better men than you,
men who don’t flinch
when a woman burns through.
Men who sip my fury like wine,
and still
ask for another glass.
You?
You watered me down,
then called me “too much”
for the mess you made.
?
And still I write.
Copyright ©
Gabrielle Munslow
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