You should have left the blood on,
\nlet the red ferment my Chanel like a beaujolais:
\nnew, light-bodied, and acidic.
\nImagine their faces!
\nA small stem like you cupping to catch
\nhis brains as they poured from the car.<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t get very far.
\nYou caught them in your hat, your hair, your face.
\nYou caught them with your lips,
\nreaching to kiss a slice of skull.
\nYou should have stayed<\/p>\n
in that lull and let the calm of his flesh
\nbreak the horror from yours like that first night.
\nInstead, you let them wipe your face.
\nInstead, they brushed the last of him from your hair.
\nYou should have left him there.<\/p>\n
A bit of brain could be all the rage\u2014
\n\u201cAdd an Extra Bop to Your Bob\u201d
\nsplashing across the magazine page. Why not?
\nThey\u2019re telling boys blood is beautiful
\nthrough Playboys and draft cards,<\/p>\n
dealing out guns like toys,
\nsaying it will make them free.
\nThey didn\u2019t tell that to us.
\nThey picked him from your hair like lice
\nand called it history.<\/p>\n
Now the rock stars are crooning
\nand an airplane\u2019s catcall
\nis whistling across the Pacific.
\nThey told you we were too horrific\u2014
\nsaid you couldn\u2019t take it.
\nBut when it\u2019s my turn,
\nI\u2019ll dip your brush in his blood
\nand paint the nation hush-red.
\n
\n
\nBryanna Lee is a writer and editor in the Tri-State Area. Originally from Minnesota, she earned an MFA in poetry from Rutgers-Newark, where she currently teaches English composition and writing workshops. She was the 2012-2013 Joseph F. McCrincle online editorial fellow for Poets & Writers, and her work can be found in Selfies in Ink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You should have left the blood on, let the red ferment my Chanel like a beaujolais: new, light-bodied, and acidic. Imagine their faces! A small stem like you cupping to catch his brains as they poured from the car. They didn\u2019t get very far. You caught them in your hat, your hair, your face. You [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[139],"class_list":["post-3032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-photo-jaysteevee-blogspot-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3032"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3046,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions\/3046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}