Not as a mandate,
just a much beloved hobby.
One more knot,
a little too tight,
around the wrist.
Two zig-zags
of slit skin.
She’s going to wrap
her heart in it,
like butcher’s paper.
Her very first pang
of homicidal intent
was born on a bed,
bursting through the sheets
like Venus
from the waves.
Her body was spit out
a long time ago.
She wants to kill her lovers.
They were never
to be untouched
as God meant them.
She’ll ride their corpses
like a raft
back where she belongs,
just a drop
in the noiseless sea.
Elle Jay Snyder is a trans woman, poet, and part-time phantom from Staten Island. She has represented her borough as part of the 2018 Advanced Slam Team at NPS, facilitated workshops in her community and for LGBTQIA youth, buried herself alive at Queer Van Kult: Revelation exhibition in 2022, and published a limited release chapbook, Where the Knife Landed, from NYSAI Press. Her work has appeared in several anthologies from great weather for MEDIA Press, Lupercalia Press, In Between Hangovers, et. al. Her work is forthcoming in Word’s Faire, and the next anthology from Querencia Press. She is also aggressively seeking a sponsorship from Mountain Dew.
Instagram: @ourladyofpoetics
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