We Monsters
No one kisses the witch.
For the witch cares nothing
about the innocent, the sacred.
She’ll steal a baby like it
was a loaf of bread. She takes
a plate of warm, beating heart
with her afternoon tea.
No one loves a villain. No.
A villain tosses poisoned apples
and hairpins like playthings. Curses spill
from her lips like songs,
and, anyway, she’ll be gone
by the end.
No one holds us monsters,
we who kill with a glance, or a swipe
of the claw. We travel by night,
cloaked in solitude. We hide
our unnatural faces,
even from ourselves.
We witches, we villains, we dragons,
we thieves. We monsters.
We wait for you to arrive,
armed with righteousness and pickaxes.
We know, we deserve this,
to meet our end as you
dispense correct justice.
We burn. We drown.
Our heads roll, like overripe fruit, at your
feet.
Yet some of us will live.
We’ll slink back into our cold caves,
sharpen our knives by the dying light of embers.
We’ll get what we need.
If it means someone has to bleed,
so be it.