I.S. Jones
Night Letter
Every dream I have of you ends with your beheading. I grasp my mouth around you & become a brief country of shame, a body that exists at will. I see your face vandalized across the faces of men that stalk the night to become it. Sometimes I think my father was just like you when he was your age. In every dream, I don’t let you force a girl on me because it was for me. I used to move through the world wanting only this: to unknuckle my body every time a man walks by. I called your friend a bitch because he stole my tongue & I let him. I called him a bitch, but was brought to my knees instead. What is there to say for the woman who lets a man take from her because she wanted to be wanted? No matter how brief the glory choked out of her. I wanted a shortcut to heaven so I let your hands about my neck until the light pulled from my eyes. Why are all your interactions with women no different than an invasion? There is a hideous light for the animal desire has made of me. In every dream, I do what I have learned to do best & unsheathe myself. I leave when it’s time to leave. I leave knowing there is nothing to save. Do you understand? Now because of you I am suspicious of joy. And suspicious of myself.
I.S. Jones is an American-Nigerian poet, educator, and music journalist from Southern California by way of New York. She is a fellow with BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, Callaloo, and is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole. Jones is Assistant Editor at Voicemail Poetry as well as Managing Editor at Dead End Hip Hop. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, The Harpoon Review, The Blueshift Journal, SunDog Lit, Matador Review, great weather for MEDIA, The Offing, Anomalous Press, The Shade Journal, Puerto Del Sol, Nat.Brut, and elsewhere.
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