Bloody Mary’s Girlfriend: A Poem by Avra Margariti
Bloody Mary’s Girlfriend
She is bruised like a lilac
As skimming fingerprints
Span train tracks and skid marks
Across the expanse of her body
All from a single touch--
And still she craves the contact.
A mere papercut gushing
Rivers of arterial nectar.
She’s baptized Bloody Mary at school
After one such incident, first period history.
Her classmates call her name three times
In the mirrors of their lockers
When she walks past them in the hallway,
In the bathroom while she’s washing the blood
From her chewed hangnail.
In her girlfriend’s garage,
Guitar practise,
Bloody Mary wishes those calloused fingers
Were all over her.
I don’t want to hurt you, her girlfriend
Whispers between strums of strings.
Bloody Mary leads the dance
Against her ballroom body.
The tickle of a ponytail, whiplashes
Across collarbones,
A blunt nail grazing her pulse point
Like a vampire preparing to feed
Or a cult member making
The first sacrificial incision.
Bloody Mary smiles.
When they’re done,
Her girlfriend’s entire body
Will be imprinted upon her own.
Avra Margariti is a queer author and Pushcart-nominated poet with a fondness for the dark and the darling. Avra’s work haunts publications such as Vastarien, Asimov's, Liminality, Arsenika, The Future Fire, Love Letters to Poe, Space and Time, Eye to the Telescope, and Glittership. Avra lives and studies in Athens, Greece. You can find Avra on twitter (@avramargariti).
