A MAN SAID HE WOULD KILL ME

                    by RebeccaLynn

​& the next morning i scrubbed him out of my jaw
so hard that the blood he promised to take from me
flooded my gums.

the first time i went out with him, he called me a queen
then dragged me across the passenger seat by my crown

like a grave digger’s shovel cracks open the earth,
he broke the chain i was wearing
while it still cradled my neck.



i texted him back anyway.

what kind of haunting
doesn’t visit their own gravesite?

the night i returned to him i was already a ghost.

​

RebeccaLynn is queer, black, and surviving in Boston. They enjoy hiphop and their mom’s cooking.
They are a Winter Tangerine workshop alumni as well as a 2017 Pink Door Fellow. Their work has appeared in Maps For Teeth Magazine, Slam Chop, and Black Nerd Problems.