Anxious Diva puts me up for ransom.
I ask her why I can’t feel my body.
She just wanted to smell the cake up close.

Who can blame her? Herself orbitless,
disappeared? Dress sagging below the knees.
Miss Charity wearing a ski mask, no panties.

I can’t touch my own body and its tremors.
If Diva wanted to give us the big kiss
we could have said goodbye. Pale bitch lips,

ghosted. Diva ties me up and swipes paint
onto my mouth, one that can neither kiss
nor confess. I will not scream. I’ve been here before.

I’m not sure who will pay my ransom.
I ask her what a “deadline” means.
She licks a dollar bill and presses it

to the back of my neck, to keep me from fainting.
Anxious Diva, men like me because I’m slick
commodity. Men like low risk high reward.

They see my black lace and sigh relief. Big coins
glimmering deep in Diva’s bustier. It’s okay. I still trust you.
A painless version of myself feels ingenuous.

—–

HANNAH KUCHARZAK is a poet and visual artist from Chicago. Her poems have been previously published, or are forthcoming, in TYPO, Requited, Pleiades, Pinwheel, Ghost Proposal, and elsewhere.

She is 24 years old. She identifies as a queer woman, and as a survivor. IG: @trixiedonna