Femma Fatale

— inspired by 秦般弱 of 琅琊榜 

Listen to me. I still don't miss beating hearts

or porcelain teacups, boy bodies breathing heavily

two cells over. I matriarch, hands practiced but soft

at the edges. This is the end, then: no more satin dresses

or notes passed in parchment, no more chests

splayed for sisters' survival. I still don't miss dainty

fingernails striped in gold and their shallow

scratches. There are girls waiting for bloodshed

in the countryside, girls that play patience

in fields of wheat, biding their time. I always liked

a man who could save me. I always liked killing men

and waiting for the blood to drain. Winter soon

and the snow still bites. A girl in a field will find

parchment soon, even as our bodies decay.

May Hathaway is a writer from New York City. Her work is published or forthcoming in Hobart After Dark, PANK, and Vagabond City Lit and has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and the National YoungArts Foundation. An alumna of the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program and the Iowa Young Writers' Studio, she will attend the University of Pennsylvania in the fall.