The Battered Wife

She
keep house holy
graffiti temple
Unrenovated, lettin the rain in

He
preacher with unclasped hands
always takin communion but
givin no tithes
he gon worship his way to hell

She’ll stay standing though
even after his death

it gon be a righteous rapture

praise The Lord
praise The Bullet
praise The Fed-up
praise Her

that was a glorious exorcism there

By Khalypso

Biography:

Khalypso is a 17 year old poet and actress born in Berkeley, CA and currently residing in Elk Grove, attending Franklin High School. Ms Osborne has been writing poetry since she was in the second grade and is currently beginning her first year of submitting her works to different literary journals, reviews, and anthologies.

Her work centers primarily around charting the existence of being a black woman living in America, although topics such as mental health, queerness, and coming-of-age have been known to Charleston themselves from her fingertips, transitioning into a frenzy of Historical references, extended metaphors, homages to soul food, and jazz connoisseurship, duels between religion and logic, onto her notebook pages, ending in a pirouette of humanity.