Once I learn I’m fuckable  
there is no stopping me— 
I steep my feet in  
anything bedazzled.  
All the heels that made me feel  
vertigo & trainwreck  
line up in my closet  
unapologetic. Each new lover  
follows me home  
in no small amount of wonder 
as pink sling-backs balance  
on the tip of my finger.  
Here is a waltz: 
purple platforms on a lawyer’s yacht.  
The white limousine refusing  
to take me back unless  
I blow the driver first. 
My gray slouch boots befriend  
every bouncer. The black peep-toes  
want to survive past Halloween  
lingerie & a bloody neck bite. 
Oh my stupid over-the-knee-boots 
always begging for it, some dress  
with a zippered front  
the beginning & end  
of a conversation  
about his uneasy wife.  
Nothing stops me anymore. 
Wet grass slick  
with morning, each blade 
nips at my red ankle-bows.  
All these mouths to feed.  
Somewhere an espadrille lies lost 
under the bed of a man  
who entered me just before 
he turned cruel.  

Danielle Mitchell (she/her) is a feminist poet and teaching artist. She is the Founding Director of The Poetry Lab, a community-based learning program that rallies in service of working class writers across the globe. Danielle is the author of the prose poem chapbook Makes the Daughter-in-Law Cry, winner of the Clockwise Prize (Tebot Bach, 2017). Her poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Vinyl, Four Way Review, Transom, New Orleans Review, Nailed Magazine and others. She is currently working on a manuscript of poems about misogyny and the Internet. Find her at poetryofdanielle.com and on Instagram @imaginarydani.