26
There are rats in the city.
By Eliza Strauss-Jenkins
They come out at night to prey on young women.
They are ill--vial creatures.
I want to pour bleach down the gutters.
They prey on road kill because they’re too weak to do their own hunting.
Step on their skulls and hear the cracking of their brittle bones.
Brittle men, who prey when the sun goes down.
My dear Viktoria,
I will rip their vocal chords out.
Even if you never did understand what they were saying.
I will gouge out their eyes and feed it to the pigeons on Sunday.
Viktoria, that man,
the one that tried to hug you,
the one who tried to kiss you.
I will rip his tongue out and and we will eat it for dinner.
I will take away his arms so he can never hold, again. So he can never hold you,
again.
Viktoria, that man,
the one I shoved away from you;
when I screamed ‘run.’
I will cut off his legs so my dog can devour her new chew toy, feasting on his bitter
blood.
The way he feasted on ours.
Viktoria, that man,
The one who told us ‘to go fuck our mothers’.
I’ll teach him a lesson or two on manners.
For all the men who stared at us, Viktoria.
I will brew an invisibility potion, so we don’t have to make ourselves small, again.
Viktoria. To the man that tried to accompany you in the bathroom.
I will feed him sewage water until he never wants to even think about bathrooms.
Viktoria, the old pervert
was the hardest one to deal with.
We couldn’t run.
We had to sit, and wait for the goddamn bus.
Viktoria, to that man,
The one that made you feel like you were rotting with each glance he planted on you.
I will make him taste his own misery. I will make him feel pain that goes beyond
touch.
My dear Viktoria,
I will pour bleach down the gutters, no matter how badly it burns.