Bad Girls

I haven’t shared a poem in years. Here’s a new one.

Here’s to the bad girls,

The ones who rise at midnight,

Twitching for a fix

Of wind in the valley or snow in the city.

They rise and watch for ways to break

Crystal and ceramics and stand-

Ards forced by birth. These bad

Girls are awakened by crickets rubbing

Their hind legs and full-throated frogs

Humping in the wetlands.

Or maybe

They are called to resist: they will

Not rise in the morning for work,

For emails and reports, for use-

Less meetings meant to net

time.

Kin to these bad girls: I say

The right things not be spoken.

I call wrong to the should haves,

The behavior lies wrapping

ankles in zombie hands

Inching through the soil.

Arm yourself! Run with arrows

Bouncing from the small

Of your back. Do not hide.

Your light is visible in darkness.

Here’s to the bad girls.

The naughty souls who snort and

Crank to shimmy pain served

ideal daughters. They heal

This tragedy of sameness,

This awfulness of good

And blow into being new

Forms of self.

These bad girls. These stinky

Ones. These horrid

Whores. Let us

Rebel and fight and dance.

Let us call ancient jinns

To mimic and expel what’s

Right. Let us wake

The dead souls and

The undead, call them

Into an army of bad

Girls. For there are not enough

Of us.