[I’m billed as The Loneliest Woman]

I’m billed as The Loneliest Woman
on Earth but it’s true I climbed into this cage
            of my own volition
            now waiting here for true love’s kiss to find me, break
            the curse.

My story begins this way: I slept with a married man & his jealous witch-wife
            that green-eyed bitch
            spat her hex at me—

                                    if any man touches you with nought but lust
                                    if any man who’s already betrothed
                                    if any man who kisses you with any aim not
                                    pure & true they’ll waste away & die of a broken heart.
 

So I ran to the circus & said
                                    I came with this cage
                                    put me in it & take us away.
 

            In town after town I perched in my prison, clad in black corsets &
                        skirts of black lace, alone on the stage bathed in blue
                        light & o I sang my true-love ache, my lonesome
                        blues

                                    could you be mine & break
                                                the spell
 

            & all men see a lonely lovely girl & want to be the one to break her
lonesome jinx.

The men mothed to me & threw their roses hopeful at my feet, their friends shoving them closer
            daring them to spend the night with the haunted house
            of my body & see if they could—nudge nudge wink wink—drive the demons out
            & the bravest ones paid the fee & stayed the night.
 

                                    Not one of them could bride me, groom me,
wrap that happy-ever-after ‘round my finger.

For the gentle & sweet ones, I wept
            rose petals & blue light & mourning veils to bury them in
For the callous & cruel I had nought but a tiny tear—
                        more for myself than them (good riddance! but alas, alone, again).
 

Sweet or cruel, they all came
                        with hope or hubris
 

                        & then the moment when their want betrayed them
                        when they saw the truth inside the sad blue rooms
                        of my eyes & o! the heart, it can break like a bulb,
                        a pop! & then a darkness.
 

Yes, I traveled back & forth across America, small town to smaller, destroying amber waves
                        of eligible bachelors 

Behold—
            I am become a plague of locusts
            I am a one-woman Dust Bowl.

(this is an excerpt from The Loneliest Show On Earth, forthcoming from Bottlecap Press in 2020)

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Jessie Lynn McMains (they/them) is a poet, writer, zine-maker, and small press owner. They are a queer and non-binary mama to two wild kiddos. Aside from words, music is their favorite thing in the world. They’re also obsessed with tarot, the Midwest/Great Lakes/Rust Belt, ghosts, and the undying spirit of punk rock. You can find their website at recklesschants.net, or find them on Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram @rustbeltjessie.