Unnamed
I tried to write this story as Viola, for violation
But my French tongue, viol, is more straightforward, so
I wonder why violer, to violate, is just a letter from voler,
or to fly?
Why violée, or violated, is just one from volée:
to be stolen?
I can see a hawk dig its claws into a rabbit, and I
wonder
Why did I start to dig into my skin
the same year that I first dug between my legs?
Did I need to negate all pleasure with pain?
My obsession with compulsion?
Or maybe I had been leaving his clasp, right then, by becoming
a better writer
Now, I see Viola play the viola,
but soon she will learn the violins
The Last Rebellion
Why would you buy me roses
when you need only find them, hook your fingers
underneath and pull?
You could deflower me all at once like that
But you give each of them your time
And the hairs on my arms
stand up like the angry grass
waiting for our first steps
down there on God’s Green Earth
Palaces is Prose Editor for Walled Women Magazine, Assistant Editor for CHEAP POP, and Assistant at One Lit Place. She’s placed her own work in Eclectica Magazine, Maudlin House, BlazeVOX, Quail Bell Magazine, and many others. She has a BAH from Queen’s University, and she is working on a budding book series. You can read more about her at pascalepotvin.com or @pascalepalaces on Twitter.