New York: Long Ago

Erica Willis
Written By Shane McKnight

I laid naked on your bed
wondering if I was pleasing to your eye
Abandoning self in favor of sushi and melting patterns on your wall

Cracked open just a little
to see if our hearts would fuse
Feeling like I could love you
I could give you all of me, and there was just so much

Careless words chopped me into bits
Joy, purity, innocence left to curdle and succumb
I was a dancing doll with cracked porcelain, silken tresses
Why couldn’t I be your queen

Blunted and skewered
Trampled and gutted
still I chose the heat
and the hope
and the hate

Now I just wish you liked me

Erica Stenta Willis is an emerging poet, essayist, and novelist. She has had work published in Rundelania, Poetry Cove, Reap Thrill, Mind Matters, Canary Collective, and a few more of her poems will soon be published. She is an attorney in Ventura County, California. She lives with her fiancé and 14-year-old rescue terrier.

Shane McKnight
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