Unlucky Girls

A poem by Mercedes Hawks

Daydream II by Daniel Ludwig

These red nails are chipped for something properly damaged that I can show you—
glossy shells, color of pumped blood. Someone said cheetah print is back, and
I never wore
it before
but

I think the occasion calls. Welcome to the double-jointed shoulders of irony! In other
words, the unstoppable roundabout, where we must look pretty and sharp, because
it is all here,
it all begins here,

it all ends here.

I promise you can look. I know you are a real adrenaline junkie, and smoke American
Spirits deep into your body, some fog-filled beast dissolving sugar on wet tongues.
We could almost

die here, but
we won’t, and

if we get to the bottom of this, you will find out my Mama almost named me Adriatic,
after the sea. Something she loved before me, and none of that is soft, just true.
But I could
never be boundless

or keep secrets,

beyond the eyes of science. Watch carefully, this is the part where I hyperextend
outward like a plank, soreness will rot the bone,
and by tomorrow
I will be all
contorted, lop-sided,

and counting stars stiff. A push-up bra and glitter, ready to be counted for. Hair permed
to the nines. None of this weighs anything, but I am hooked on

these reminders of

bareness, nakedness, and

vulnerability, and I

have never done anything bad, except now. Only where you can see. A dying wasp
stuck in a fig, I am begging you to look, so I can be
a bad girl
one more time,
wading towards death.