You're a window shopper till you splurge on me.

That one, you say, with skin pristine, eucharist

teeth. Sitting on a manmade pedestal, the world

hasn't yet touched me. I need you to pick me.

Take me with you. I'll live in a glass box,

if you want me to. Don't make me go back

to where dad drinks too much, spills

I never wanted you. Introduce me to your mom,

ooh and aah at my rose-petal cheeks.

It's my turn to go someplace called home.

On Friday nights, I dress in my Sunday best,

a collector's item for you to show off to friends.

When Bryan points at my high-waisted shorts,

says FYI, no man finds those attractive, I switch

to dresses. You paint silences with crescendos—

what a doll, what a doll, what an absolute doll.

I'm in my white dress till your friend asks me

for my body count, my number the same as yours.

My hand frostbitten where you dropped it,

I chase you out of the party early. You drive

hell for leather down pin-drop back roads.

I reach for you, your crossed arm slices me down.

I can't even look at you. I open my own door,

kiss myself goodnight. I re-draft dozens of baby,

forgive me letters, my neatest handwriting smudged

as bruises. I mute the TV so it won't drown out

your tires screeching down the street. Hope is

the last swig of Jack Daniels. I swish it

like mouthwash, so my tongue tastes like you.

You bust through the door. Now you know

I'm made of cheap plastic, you grip me

by the hair, fuck me like a woman,

not a porcelain doll you're scared to crack.

Dré is a queer Mexican-French Canadian poet, alchemist, and herbal bruja who loves wildlife,

moon-bathing, and dismantling systems of oppression. Her work has been published in SWWIM,

PRISM international, Gnashing Teeth, wildscape.lit, Gather Lit Mag, and Arte y Literatura

Hispanocanadiense. She is currently working on her debut poetry collection.