On Want

Capitalism is ruining my hair but insists / I keep it long.

Capitalism is ruining my hair but insists
I keep it long. My love likes it long,
so does my dad. Mom once explained
she thought it was a sex thing,
liking long hair. Lust won’t speak to me.
Buried in drugs that keep me less angry at—
it’s hard to say exactly what—I want so badly
to want again. My clit, music-less,
seems to be the problem. No, the problem
is the heaviness of pills or the problem is
I have never been a steady animal, skittering
my way from job to job, state to state,
love to dread, and now there is his house
and dogs and Costco membership,
and the loud part of me that says shave
your head, wild the night, drink the bartender:
that’s the only part that knows how to want.

About the author

Stevie Edwards is the founder and editor-in-chief of Muzzle Magazine and senior editor in book development at YesYes Books. She is the author of poetry collections Good Grief (Write Bloody, 2012) and Humanly (Small Doggies, 2015), as well as poetry chapbook Sadness Workshop (Button Poetry, 2018). She holds an MFA from Cornell University and is a PhD student at University of North Texas. Her poems have been published in CrazyhorsePleaides32 PoemsWest Branch, and elsewhere.