he’s forcing me to write love

poems for him again like

he’s forcing everything

on me

dagger against my throat or

cuffing me to a desk with a

quill and a bottle of ink over

empty pages – I would like

to think so

would like to imagine my rain-

stained clothes and dripping wet

frown while he squeezes

my jaw, mockingly lifts my

chin up to hear me hiss

curses as I grudgingly obey

the cruel prince; I am

the young viscount, I know

grief but I am trouble, the kind

of trouble he loves

to be in

he takes, ah, such pleasure

in corrupting me, in taming

my resistance: fear-driven

and prey to vanity, he knows

a poet when he sees one

he knows me

I’m afraid he might, I am

scared he could

know me