Dominique Dusek’s work has appeared in Jet Fuel Review and Windows Fine Arts Magazine. After earning her Bachelor’s in Creative and Professional Writing at Lewis University, Dominique decided to return to school to complete her graduate degree in Secondary Education. She hopes to someday apply her passion for teaching writing as a high school English Language Arts teacher.
Some Other Part of Me
Did I lose the terms and conditions manual
you came with? The one that dictates
the inadequacy of women with short haircuts, my own
half-shaved head a rough stubble of deformity,
the one that stipulates that if I’m raped,
it's the fault of my crop top or my clavicle
or some other part of me that lures men
like minnows to the glow of an anglerfish.
Forever, men will force their fingers,
their tongues, their words into you into me
until we purple like an orchid—or just collapse,
a clam shell snapping shut to swallow that milky pearl.