The History of Emotional Ambush
It began with a path.
There was a girl.
There is always a girl
with a basket of obedience
and warnings. Don’t talk to strangers.
Stay on the trail.
But this story forgets
that wolves are never strangers.
They know our names,
say red is our color. The hood looks nice
with your tan before scampering off
to plot and plan.
The story knows we all learn
our lesson.
This wolf was memorable.
He said things like, come closer
so I can look at you.
But I knew his game.
What big arms you have.
Like all girls, I’ve been trained.
Until the story gets uncomfortable,
as it always does. His smile.
All the better to hug you with, my dear.
Even so, the story continues.
It never ends, actually. Fairy tales
are forever.
I buried my father
under an ambivalent sky,
as if mourning were a thing to be earned.
Standing apart, an estranged
daughter wearing
the wrong shoes and a quiet scandal.
This story is about a family
that still gathers
for pictures without the girl.
There is a cousin.
There was always her cousin
until there wasn’t.
Are you coming to the Steak Loft?
Am I coming.
Where grief and prime beef
were served. Under fluorescent lights,
a post-funeral feast. Iced
teas served with cocktail napkins
like small talk.
I walked this widow’s sad buffet path
when he came, this man
I hadn’t seen in over a decade.
My sister-in-law’s father
like a wolf from the forest,
unwelcome and sudden.
He opened his arms.
Aren’t you going to give me a hug?
Sometimes a story is too much.
There was a girl
raw with the scent of cemetery.
She was offered a trap
disguised as a question, a dare
written in teeth. Well, where’s my hug?
In the revised version,
the girl says something snappy,
something smart like
The only man I want to hug is my father.
She walks out the door.
But I did what the story wanted.
Reader, I hugged him.
His stubble grazed my cheek
like a threat. Beef breath and brazen.
See, this is how it begins.
Not with a devouring, but an embrace.
Fuck stories that teach the girl
to swallow her No.
Let the forest grow thick with refusal.
Or next time, I bring an axe.
*
Candice M. Kelsey (she/her) is a poet and educator living in both L.A. and Georgia. She’s developed a taste for life’s absurd glow, long skirts, and juicy opera podcasts. She roasts vegetables like it’s a sacred ritual and wears mostly black because her late father-in-law said it’s not her color. Somehow her work has received Pushcart and Best-of-the-Net nominations, and she woke up one day as the author of 8 books. Please acknowledge her existence @Feed_Me_Poetry or https://www.candicemkelseypoet.com/.
Fabulous🍃
Powerful.