the feminine urge
to murder a lover over breakfast
because he talked over you at last night’s dinner party.
swallowing remarks like dripping yolk,
whilst he sips his tea brewed with love—
and arsenic.
the feminine urge to wash his whites
with the red lace lingerie
you wore on his last birthday.
the feminine urge to bleed
all over the bedsheets, to refuse
to grow his babies, to abandon your
responsibilities, to forget to buy his toothpaste,
to move everything on his desk an inch to the left,
to cry only when the door closes,
to hug the sheets when the lights are off,
to daydream about your teenage love,
to fuck him like all of it is enough.
Chloe Hanks is a poet currently based in York, UK. She won the V Press Prize for Poetry in 2020 with her pamphlet May We All Be Artefacts and holds an MA with Distinction in Creative Writing from the University of Birmingham. She is a PhD candidate with York St John and a board member for the York Literature Festival 2024.