Owned

 

 
 
 

Worry ruined the only black stilettos I own.  Worry  knows    I hate my legs. How I’m flatfooted and ordinary. Thinks I look    better in boots. Worry claws at the red freshly painted door, tore up    the Crate and Barrel.   Worry doesn’t care: about cortisol about twelvehour desklunches, about the boss    that hired me to argue. Worry barks until its fed. Worry worries I don’t give enough. That even sleep is lazy.  That I will be fat never full. Worry hungers. Begs  for half my  meal. Drools at the smell of blood: steak, bacon, thighs.   Worry whimpers. Needs to be walked.   Wants the neighborhood to see. Worry pisses on every flower. Knows some name it  allergy. I told Worry I bought  a cage.      Worry barked so loud    the neighbors heard. Worry   hasn’t had its shots. Worry: never neutered.  Wants to breed. Wants to get on everything. Always says look how fast     I family.    Look how many rooms  I live in now.  

 
 
 

Kelly Grace Thomas is the winner of the 2017 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle, a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best of the Next nominee. BOAT/BURNED, her first full-length collection, is forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2019. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: DIAGRAM, Nashville Review, Sixth Finch, Muzzle, PANK and more. Kelly currently works to bring poetry to underserved youth as the Manager of Education and Pedagogy for Get Lit-Words Ignite. She is also the co-author of Words Ignite: Explore, Write and Perform, Classic and Spoken Word Poetry (Literary Riot). Kelly was a 2016 Fellow for the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop. She is the founder of FeministWrites, a creative collective that connects and champions feminist voices. She lives in Los Angeles. For more please visit www.kellygracethomas.com