Cassandra Manzolillo

Thigh High Lace Love

I only like men in high heels and corsets.

Who act like a pageant mother to me

& flaunt across underground railroads & drift through

boisterous city streets. They bite down

on my inner ear lobe,

tsk tsk tsking to me

as I capitulate to the concrete

my knee caps cave south

my nose in between their pointed, triangular toes

& my tongue, up their hairy hamstrings,

till it curves into the roof of their sticky, lipsticked mouth; oh

stop it.

Look around.

All of the masculine marked boxes are covered with sheets of cracked glass,

don’t show me my past:

daddy issues this, mommy issues that;

I deserve love, please come back.

would you stay, & hold my hand & could you do that thing, where you make slow circles inside my palm, till I drift off falling slowly sideways, my head rests below your neck. Stroke my hair as the mellow tv night light glows & you sit next to me,

wishing that I was the daughter you never had; when I drift in and out of a realm where you are my mommy, my girlfriend, my boyfriend, my daddy,

just all of the goodnight forehead kisses I can get.


Cassandra Manzolillo is a writer, filmmaker, and dancer based in Long Island, New York. Cassandra is a full time student at Stony Brook University and is set to graduate with a BFA in creative writing and literature.