COOL GIRL

after Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl

Boy’s want a Cool
Girl they can clean their teeth with
fresh pick that tired smile
ask you to not have all that water
tell a joke that makes you suck
the surge inside your mesoderm
web net all the rushing sounds of the bile
that sewages a hole in your bedsheets
Cool Girl swallows
every word that doesn’t taste like sugar
what is a Cool Girl if she does not go down
smoothly. Does not glint
marble any other style
but softly
like she’s got an oiled jaw
that presses into bear trap smiles
during poker games where boy’s
boyish-friends make laughter about her body
lifeless at the bottom of the backyard cliff
& the boy smiles & the Cool Girl stares ahead & bites
her blood

By Chestina Craig

Biography:

Chestina Craig lives in Long Beach, CA with her cat. Her work has been published in Black Napkin Press, The Rising Phoenix Review, Incandescent Mind, KINGS ZINE, L’EPHEMERE Review, Femme Fotale (photography), and others. She has presented her work at The Presidents Commission on The Status of Women, The Young Women’s Empowerment Conference presented by Congressman Allen Lowenthal, The Orange