Aphrodite Defiled

By: Farah Dianputri

I didn’t ask for your 

insecurities

Or your hands 

To venerate me.

Shut up

Hold back that 

writhing worm 

you cage

behind your teeth

Any closer 

And I’d bite it off.

Then, watch

scarlet bloom

in the cavity

And melt into 

the cracks of those 

broken lips

But I didn’t.

I allowed flattery 

To stream out instead.

“Goddess,” one night 

you hiss and I think of

flab folding in furrows

cotton candy complexions

Stretched out on the 

canvases of old masters.

you may evoke 

Venus, nymph, 

odalisque, 

or any other excuse

in sophisticated guise.

Your diction was crass,

Sycophantic.

So was your 

technique.

I am not your altarpiece