Aphrodite Defiled

By: Farah Dianputri

I didn’t ask for your 
insecurities
Or your hands 
To venerate me.

Shut up
Hold back that 
writhing worm 
you cage
behind your teeth
Any closer 
And I’d bite it off.
Then, watch
scarlet bloom
in the cavity
And melt into 
the cracks of those 
broken lips
But I didn’t.

I allowed flattery 
To stream out instead.
“Goddess,” one night 
you hiss and I think of
flab folding in furrows
cotton candy complexions
Stretched out on the 
canvases of old masters.

you may evoke 
Venus, nymph, 
odalisque, 
or any other excuse
in sophisticated guise.
Your diction was crass,
Sycophantic.
So was your 
technique.

I am not your altarpiece