bitch

on loving and biting back like a dog

bitch. born part-dog, part-girl, i salivate street-taught discipline while fighting the urge to tear your lips apart, to claw out the ripe tongue that curls. 

they had to declaw me in the seventh grade to keep me from starting fights in the parking lot. but all it did was bring out my molars, like my body knew a taste was much worse in leaving me wanting more. so my face remains unwashed, dried blood layered around the chin from all the times i bit back. 

bitch. ana passes a dorm-issued trashcan with no lining, and we take turns heaving vanilla-flavored lament and rage into the plastic that listens. i’ve never seen her this angry, but the voice of the navy boys in the kitchen carries into the hallway, and if they hear our feral clawing against the wooden door, we’d be put down. 

my dad tells me not to pick fights with strangers who share your face, but i inherited my mother’s grinding jaws. the infection of my bite still radiates on your torso.

bitch. there’s always something animal in me. i spent last may in a muzzle, settling for the scraps left behind on the dinner table. once i had a taste of the real thing, fresh flesh against canines, i swore i’d never go back. just let me have one more bite. 

but i’m loyal like a dog, i promise. i’ll round the sheep into the slaughterhouse, turning every corner knowing the ax would greet me if the shepherd was hungry enough. i’d let myself starve before i ever considered tearing the clavicle from his shoulders for the slender meat that decorated curved bone. even if he chose not to feed me, even if he starved me on purpose. i’m loyal like a

bitch. if i look rabid enough, will he not want to taste the blood of past kills in my mouth? the last lacerations are still healing, and the stitches are still unremoved. a broken paw and i’d still find my way back to the ring. i didn’t leave with enough mouthfuls from the last fight. 

a dog’s mouth is no cleaner than a human’s. we drool the same acid onto the stained carpet, and i’m not the kind of girl you introduce your friends to at the pub because they’ll see you’ve yet to domesticate the fight out of me. on the ride out of the city, you’ll listen to my clenched growls from the backseat and consider leaving me on the side of the road. but the coyotes might find the body; they might seek vengeance for a death of their own. 

bitch. at least let me earn the title. let me bite a chunk from your thigh and down it whole.