POEM: Queen

When she was 21 she bought a gun
and posed with it in pictures
uploaded to the internet.
 
She dyed her hair hot pink and tied it up
in pigtails with some baubles
that sparkled and glowed in the dark.
 
She wore knee-high socks and glitter sneakers,
short skirts with frills and men’s ties
so people’d know she meant business.
 
She robbed a liquor store on H and 3rd
for twenty-five dollars cash
and a bottle of tequila
(fucking damn if she’d ever felt more alive) –
Gave the money to a man
down on his luck three streets away,
drank the booze while taking blurry selfies,
googling pictures of the sunrise.
 
She shot a man at twenty-six
for making vapid comments on her tits.
One dark alleyway too far
and she was washing out his blood
from her knee-high white socks and checkered shoes.
She emptied out his wallet
but it wasn’t worth the bullet.
 
She wears plastic tiaras on a throne
made out of pizza boxes
and falls asleep to Riot Grrl
and wonders when she wakes if it’s today
the end will come with sirens
wailing while she waits her turn to
die.

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