Raping of Pygmalion

It has been four years since 

I was in Paris, a city in which I left 

the greatest euphoria of my lifetime. Upon my return, you were the 

first American face I cared to see, 

you with your vaudeville eyes and blazing curls. You offered me shelter and food and wine for the night, and in my 

drunkenness and 

jetlaggedness and 

lovesickness, 

you pirated my lips and fingertips. 

You did so in a moment of utter 

denial of your own queer desires, 

and I was your ideal, wastrel target. 

You continually denied 

your own Sapphism, even though 

you would replace all your “ils” with 

“elles” as you sang Edith Piaf. 

So you stoked my forest fire while 

threatening to snuff out our friendship 

if I didn’t comply. You told me 

my lips looked like comfort, but 

what you meant is that they 

looked like a breach. 

You admitted premeditation but later 

masked it as your own assault. 

The Huntress became the Hunted, 

even though it was you who 

whispered rumor of hidden blades 

in the room and how easily you could sculpt my throat into 

a burgundy waterfall. Was this baleful 

seduction or sultry intimidation? 

You were my Countess of Cruel Contradictions. You saw ribs 

outstretched like condor wings and 

an ego shattered like a glacier in a 

meteor shower and yet you had 

the audacity to suggest I lose some 

weight. You reprimanded my 

divine disbelief, but when I did accept 

glorious grace, you condescended 

my delusions. You incinerated my 

insecurity, but you scorned 

my strength. You called yourself my 

Arm Candy, but you didn’t tell me you 

were laced with arsenic. On my 

birthday, you drugged me and 

stole my wine and still insisted I 

pay for dinner. You bewitched me with 

your Eros but treated me like 

your Semele. And while you 

scorched me, you kindled the embers by 

dubbing me “slimy,” you who for years 

layered an entire friendship with more masques than a royal ball. Always you masqued your abuse under the 

mantra of “making me into the best 

man I can be.” I wonder what you would 

think of me today, the opposite of what 

your misplaced, gifted hands aspired to 

mold, O Great Henrietta Higgins. 

Your Pygmalion is now 

your Frankenstein’s Creature. 

But I refuse to be your Prometheus. Spreading your fire won’t bring Knowledge, it will only bring 

Reckoning.