Slender Secrets by Kristin Garth

Slender Secrets
(first published in Anti-Heroin Chic, July 12th, 2017)

He thinks I had a choice. This grandpa cop
in hipster glasses, ironed shirt who writes
my words like tendrils, mansion, doesn’t stop
to question that they might be true. First night,
seduced, at six, into your sly service,
the circles drawn on dolls you say are meant
for me unless I listen. Go from nervous
to abject fear by twelve years old. You send
by then your pixie proxy, swimming pools
with slender secrets. Sharp sacrifice we
surmise because we both see. Two tools,
who’ll slice, like air, for you, a strawberry.
You taught me that a knife is but a key;
to kill a friend, not choice, necessity.

Kristin Garth is a poet from Pensacola and a sonnet stalker. In addition to Chantarelle’s Notebook, her sonnets have stalked magazines like Five: 2: One, Glass, Anti-Heroin Chic, Occulum, Drunk Monkeys, Luna Luna and many more. Her chapbook Pink Plastic House is available from Maverick Duck Press, and she has two forthcoming: Pensacola Girls (Bone & Ink Press, Sept 2018) and Shakespeare for Sociopaths (The Hedgehog Poetry Press Jan 2019). Follow her kneesocks and new Slenderman anthology project with @justin_karcher on Twitter: @lolaandjolie