“A Queen Loses Her Crown When She Loses Her Virginity”
by Kai Davis

We’ve learned to call Queens outside of their real titles.
Girls became ‘Jawns’, ‘Jawns’ became ‘bitches’,
and bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks.
Well, whose trick was that?
Is it a coincidence that the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene
share the same name, but not the same crown? 
These girls have no crown.
Just scalp-pats and ass-taps.
They say “Hit it from the back”.
Well, I couldn’t look a Queen in the eye either.
So we’ll just pretend they’re all animals.
Or objects.
Because devotion is harder than disconnection.
Someone disconnect the throne from the seat of their elastic denim.
Beat them till they bounce back like rubber-banded bimbos.
Tell them bend over.
Can you wave hello to hell?
Can you smell the burning embers?
Does it smell like sulphur?
Does it smell like dirty twat?
You know, dirty twats get swatted into filthy gutters.
We’ve got to get our minds out the gutter.
Gotta get these hoes off the track.
Gotta get this glue out this trap.
Those sticky, Nicki Minaj impersonators,
those self-proclaimed “Bad Bitches”, “Hood Bitches”, “Five-star Bitches”. 
They disrespect the galaxies because heaven has no place for whores.
So where will they go? 
Sexual freedom isn’t acceptable for women.
Due to the misogyny massaged into men’s brains.
A Queen loses her crown when she loses her virginity.
And a Queen becomes a ‘bitch’ when she likes it. 

by Carol Ann Duffy

Teach me, he said -
we were lying in bed -
how to care.
I nibbled the purse of his ear.
What do you mean? Tell me more.
He sat up and reached for his beer

I can rip out the roar
from the throat of a tiger,
or gargle with fire
or sleep one whole night in the Minotaur’s lair,
or flay the bellowing fur
from a bear,
all for a dare.
There’s nothing I fear.
Put your hand here -

he guided my fingers over the scar
over his heart,
a four-medal wound from the war -
but I cannot be gentle, or loving, or tender.
I have to be strong.
What is the cure?

He fucked me again
until he was sore,
then we both took a shower.
Then he lay with his head on my lap
for a darkening hour;
his voice, for a change, a soft burr
I could just about hear.
And, yes, I was sure
that he wanted to change,
my warrior.

I was there

So when I felt him soften and sleep,
when he started, as usual, to snore,
I let him slip and slide and sprawl, handsome and huge,
on the floor.
And before I fetched and sharpened my scissors -
snipping first at the black and biblical air -
I fastened the chain to the door.

That’s the how and the why and the where.

Then with deliberate, passionate hands
I cut every lock of his hair.