Now that the world is (boring and) safe
Will you be content being pretty as a model
or will your boyfriend be just another carving knife?
Your skin breaks out
like boredom at a wedding

Sound vices shape your breathing femininity
The woman in you believes
in
anything
Call it grace, ask your children if they want to live forever
in heaven
If they say yes, is that validation?

Justice buys you meals and necklaces that shine
and you love him for it because loving him is the only currency you own
A heart made of cubic zirconia

You live in a world of angles and good sides
Beauty beholden to
camera lenses
and
soft lighting
and a list of friends who call you family or acquaintance
This broadens the urbane suburbia of your global presence
always clinging to a man

You are woman, you are strong
So he says
but
you
aren’t buying it.
It is his purse you live for, the safety of his numbered accounts
The woman I always imagined you could be.