Nine Poems for Girls Who Won't Read Them

For Pia

I'd die for you

although I know 

you'd rather die 

than ask me to 

You, who had the courage to wear every eye colour but your own

You, who delighted in filth of every sort: the macabre, the unsettling, the profane

You, who lived your life under the gaze of a million admirers

Your eyes gleamed, untroubled by their stares 

yet you cowered under her gaze. 

She dimmed your gleam 

tarnished your delight

flattened your courage

and I,

I hated her

first and best

for that.