Daddy problems dragged on her heart
Like nails to a chalkboard;
A fork to a glass plate
Clumsy pulse couldn’t keep up with her
Now it rides the cracks
In-between
Marbled mortuaries
Or couches where
Pennies tell stories of cling-clank days
In someone’s handor
At the bottom of someone’s purse
Rolled out in a grocery store
And turned into a turkey
Her heart could relate It had been a turkey once
Then a chicken
Heart, let her host hide behind Maybelline
Pretending to be the Queen of England
Instead of Post Road.
Shoot, sometimes Host put weave in her hair
Called herself Rapunzel
Her mouth dried and crusted
Into mold Piped with old folklore
about the day her heart ran away
She never learned to guard Heart
Now, she believes it somewhere with wolves
Chantel Massey is a poet, teaching artist, and educator from Indiana. She is a College of Wooster Alum with a BA in English. She is the author of Bursting At The Seams, published by VK Press LLC in 2018. Her work is forthcoming or appears in FAFCollective and elsewhere. Her current focus is on human rights, confessions and emotional honesty about: womanhood, sexuality, spirituality, and blackness. She also host Tea’s Me Cafe with poet, Eric Saunders every first Friday.