kill for me

devotion part two

Mar 27, 2025

what would you do for me?

i drink a dark wine reminiscent of a bruise from a glass thin enough to slice my lip. my past lives watch me from matted frames on the walls as my hips wrapped in black silk and lace sway gently through the hall. cold air reaches him before i do, yet i am warm to the touch. my voice feels like moonrise—a comforting yet unsettling dark blue in which much more is awakening than being put to rest—and i ask him again,

what would you do for me?

when i was younger, i wore red and my hair was brown.

like a pink-skinned baby bird, i would accept anything a man spit into my mouth.

fluffy and pre-dark—not yet darkened by the sun or unanswered prayers trapped within my skin. baby birds have a smaller, less discerning appetite, and i was a baby bird. i would open my mouth, eager for the same regurgitated love a man gave the last baby bird to slide down my throat. this is what men like most about baby birds—knowing only survival, baby birds will get on their knees and worship for so little.

men don’t like younger women because their flesh is firmer but because their opinions are… less firm. anyone 20 years younger than you tends to assume you’re right about most things. some men will trade in a lot…for a bit of admiration.
zoe williams, men prefer younger women not for their firmer bodies, but for their admiration, 20191

it’s a lot easier for a man to convince a baby bird that covering her in his lukewarm cum is mutually beneficial. the lust and mediocrity of devotionless men can only satiate small appetites. no longer a baby bird, my stomach isn’t flat, but that’s not the problem—my appetite is. men more than anything want to see themselves as gods in the whites of your eyes, and it’s a lot easier to make a believer out of a baby bird.

and, i’m a middle aged woman2, now.

i wear black and my hair is black, now—it took me awhile to get my black feathers in. now, dark-skinned, with a voracious appetite, i only open my mouth for devotion.

i eat fresh pappardelle and lamb ragu on handmade italian ceramic plates. i’d sooner tear a man’s tendons from his muscles and deep fry them in freshly churned butter before i eat a good morning text for breakfast. i’m hungry daddy, feed me more than that. feed me more than the performative acts of love that you’ve studied, practiced, and perfected on all of the baby birds that you’ve eventually pushed from your nest.

no longer a baby bird, give me devotion for my worship. i want the blood of my enemies on your hands as you grip my hips and pull yourself into me. as you plunge your teeth into the back of my neck, i want the city of troy to burn in my name if you were to ever be without me. show me that you are worthy of the worship you seek.

what would you do for me?

“what do you want?”

a staining darkness of a woman, i pour onto him, into him—i fill the seams of him. i’m hard to get out, even if he tries. i smile without my eyes. my eyes are my favorite weapon. anything is a weapon if you hold it right, and i hold my eyes just right. hand behind the hilt, i can cut through a man with one look. right to his dark red bones, to what he thinks i can’t see. i always know where there’s darkness, i can smell it on you.

i can smell the parts of him that are rotting away—the parts of him that are pulsating, begging for blood and nutrients—the devotion in him. men need devotion more than women and they are starving without it—trying to satiate a divine hunger with the hyperconsumption of empty connections, empty calories. lonelier than ever, watching the bright leaves of spring from abandoned temples. i smile because i know devotion when i hear it. in a man, devotion sounds like fear—fear of what he would do for you.

would you kill for me?

“yes.”