“Have you considered that maybe I am not pleasant ?"

    "Maybe I wear lipstick so that you will see my pretty pink mouth wrapping around a coffee cup lid and be distracted enough not to notice that I am intelligent and powerful; a threat. Maybe I draw my brows into high arches so you will look at my unimpressed skepticism and overlook my spiteful glare as a trick of my silly, girlish routine. Maybe I wear my heels so high and thin so that I grasp your attention with the sway of my hips as I listen to the click-clack-click against the floor and know that if you should try to overpower me, I walk on sharpened knives. Maybe when I laugh at your worthless jokes I am really baring my fangs, waiting patiently for the day that I sink them into your neck. I am not made of porcelain pleasantries; you will find that these things are my armor to keep you at a distance, so you do not step on me and shatter my fragile control. I am not a husk — i am not wilting. I am turning my head so that the fire blazing through my eyes does not catch on the accelerant of your sweaty palms and burn your bones to dust. I am not your pretty girl; I am a fury, a faerie, a phoenix — a forest of werewolves and wendigos that will carve out your chest so that the next time I paint my pretty pink lips I will taste the copper tang of your dying breaths."

- R.K., “I Am The Wolf Only Barely Contained”