Congratulations to our Second Place winner of the Hope and Healing Poetry Prize! Read the poem below:
Nicety by Naya Lanai
I am afraid of women who are too nice. I am afraid of the consequences. I am afraid of the blame after.
I often watch a little fox try to creep into a henhouse but it’s not very clever. It doesn’t have to be, sometimes a faux limping paw is enough. In between the whimpers, I see the flash of hunger.
I am no longer a woman who is too nice. I am kind but not blind. My reverence used to be in softness, but now it lies in the authenticity of my ever changing spirit.
I am not afraid of the fox. I am afraid of how close the fox can get to a buffet.
I return to wolfpanther that I was. I now-fanged, grab this fox by the tail, dragging it away. I ignore the yelps. I am not a woman anymore, I don’t need to be too nice.
The fox is chittering when I drop it. Trying to fawn flash-belly and in its movement forgets about its injury. Forgets to hide the blood already on the teeth, on the tongue.
Enough. I sound, flexing claws, pristine for now. No shows needed anymore. I know what you are. Let us talk beast to beast.
The fox stills, lays prone for a moment. Before flipping over to look me dead in the eyes. I am unmoving, eyes verdant alive to keep hold. The honesty of who I am makes this animal flinch, speak for the first time, I am starving.
You are liar, I hiss, tail lashing. You are fed, but all you know is greed. All you know is guilting others. You take because you can, not honoring what is already given to you.
The fox is already slinking away, ears flat-back, avoiding accountability. I see the full belly drag on the ground. I do not care, it’s not near my henhouse. It got very close. I howl, stay away, hackles still raised.
When I go back, I am a woman once more, although the fangs take some time to fade away. I am not afraid to be mean. If I am looked at differently, fine, the patterns are not patterns on my coat.
Regardless, all of my hens are accounted for, all of them
Frolic.
