fly trap. Because I’m all acid up inside & yellow when light slaps just right. Grew this crown just for you because I know how you like everything that bites. Seen you succumb to want just as hard as any other pain. When you asked me to love in more honest ways, I heard this ruin doesn’t happen only in the dark. What good is fantasy when hunger always takes back what it offers? You & I know gluttony is the deadly sin that least satisfies itself. Meat begets meat & the world is what rises back. Say my mouth is too much red but tongue is the only organ I use for anything other than my own pleasure. Call me conqueror or not, I eat flight & surrender just the same & spit you back mercy to mark your dead. It’s anyone’s funeral & you’ll cry if I ask you to. I might, but really it’s your bleeding I want. Don’t think me cruel, only bright-mouthed & unafraid of beauty. The heart wants what it knows will burn. In the end I’m a simple kind of animal: turn up the night & let me show you how I suck the light from your name, sow my teeth into every tender thing.
KJ Li is an LGBT+ Chinese-American raised in central Texas. She currently lives in Washington, D.C., where she takes long walks and misses the family cat. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Chestnut Review, Lumiere Review, Cobra Milk, Windows Facing Windows Review, Eunoia Review, and others.