I Am The Girl Your Mother Warned You About

I am the girl your mother warned you about.
The mythical siren,
with lovesick sailors at my feet.
Shipwrecked from one look.
You think there is an olive branch in my eyes,
but I am not one to surrender.
Wave your flags and admit your own defeat.

I will break them before they ever have a chance to break me.

I am the girl who promises the whole world.
I weave tales of grand adventure,
but leave you at the county line.
Call me the one who got away because I’m always running.
And will never turn around to see if you’re chasing.
I wait for nothing,
let them all wait for me.

I am cold and calculating.
I wear a crown of broken hearts in my hair,
And keep a list of future prospects under my bed.
I feel nothing at all.
I swallow your confessions for dessert
and let you swallow me for seconds.
I feel nothing.
I feel nothing unless I can make it hurt.

I am Medusa.
They say 
I was beautiful once,
But nothing lasts forever,
So let me be stone.
Glass heart.
Empty.
Hollowed out body.
Cruel.

Let me be the monster I wish to be.

I am rearranging my truths,
Rewriting my soul.
Constructing the story that I want to be.
The character.
The bitch.
The vixen.
The heartbreaker.
The one who walks away with ease, head held high.
The one who knows how to move on.
The one with some goddamn dignity.

Anyone
but me.

So instead,
let me be the girl your mother warned you about.
Rather than wanting to give you everything.
Give you all my pieces,
Without asking anything in return.
That this burning cathedral inside is still singing.
I should really have been destroyed by now.
But my stained-glass still shines.
I have learned to survive with my sunshine still intact somehow.
And you,
You conduct electricity through my walls.
You can reduce me to my knees.
Bow my head in prayer,
I do not know what I believe.
But I ask this:

Help me stop feeling so much
Stop caring so much.
Stop yearning so much.
Sometimes,
I wish I could just not give a fuck.

But I give so many.
And I give them all to you.

Ari Eastman is a poet and the author of the book Bloodline.

Bloodline is available as a physical and electronic book. You can buy it here.