men hating parable (don't worry!) 

all my earrings turned to flies & flew off.
i bought fish hooks & forgot about the barb
so now i have fish hook earrings forever.
when i say i hate men i don't mean all the time.
i am not a fan of back pedaling though
so i'm going to take this on. men are the reason
for drought. the water is sick of becoming their mirrors.
men are the reason for multiple locks 
on any given door. men once took the moon down
& played kickball with it & that's why
there are so many bruises on its surface.
men peer in my window & ask what i'm doing here
& i always reply "i'm fishing."
there are moments where i could love them.
most of my crushes are instense & brief.
without my earrings i don't know
how i'm going to woo anyone. i need a new crush
because my last one is gone. i saw this man
in town for weeks. he had long black hair
& a purple bandana & black painted nails.
i hoped he worshiped satan or something cool
then i saw him with a girl & they held hands 
& i clapsed my own hands together like an acolyte
to walk home. the mouth is the fastest healing body part
so i take a pocket knife to my cheek & craft
a window. i made a little version of myself
to watch the world from my own mouth.
i don't know if i count in the group "men"
but i probably do. it's best to monitor this 
for future turmoil. what i really want 
is for a man to pick me up & carry me 
to a bed of flowers & tell me he loves
my scars & that he wants to look in my window 
to see my miniature self. i am so femme sometimes that
i forget i'm biological. smashing flies on the wall
leaves ugly smudges that never come out 
but at least they are momentos of my earrings.
someday, i'll live somewhere i can be
the body i want to be. i have a pair of heels
who walk the hall in my apartment alone at night.
sometimes in poems i say "house" when i mean
"apartment" because i dream of houses. 
soon this poem will end & i'll stop thinking
about men. one last things though,
next time you see one ask him what he does
with his earrings to keep them 
from becoming insects.