Thirty-one Whacks
After Amanda Palmer

A notch in my thigh for
every year I’m alive. This year,
I’m counting to twenty-nine.
I can’t admit what I don’t know.
How many hits can a person take
and stay whole?

A girl like me at fifteen, sure as shit that I knew everything,
wiser men be damned, wiser men charm me
out of my queerness and into…
therapy. I’d have melted myself down
to a puddle of blood and fury
to prove to you that I was never
worth saving. I am the upside of a mandatory report.

December is a coat I wear all year.
On the tenth day, I confront my nature
and prepare for my annual near-death experience.

As the brute holds the haft, the axe’s head
nearing me for the last marking of my twenties.
So long, farewell.
The weaponist tries to kiss me instead, but
I beg for tradition.
As I endure what it is that other people do
gracefully, I think,
“Please, these are death to a delicate girl,”

I release the axeman from their contract,
and start to tend to the wounds of three decades,
relieved, yet somehow sad
that there won’t be thirty-one whacks.

Originally published in 2022 by Coin Operated Press.