Mad Crawford - Ideal Woman

I want to drink from a hedgehog

a vessel with a hole for a straw

in the central locus of its back

it’ll go down smooth

drinking a god

let bodies spill from me

this is the woman I want to be

shape a burrow

from everything I find

place the drapes

of a proper color

make my babies meals

let me wear a prickly spine

rise up when suitors approach

let me dare them

may they pull out thorns

for days after

remember needle wounds

count the stars

I want to live forever

protect my babies from pricks

I bear wounds for all my litter

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Mad Crawford is a recent Hunter College graduate with a degree in Greek & Latin. She has been previously published in The Olivetree Review, The Candy Zine, and Loser Zine. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.