a portrait of wonder woman as a walk of shame | poetry by JoAnna Brooker

a portrait of wonder woman as a walk of shame


armor forged from biker shorts & a tube skirt from Forever 21, stitched stars & a haphazard gold trim with shaky hands, a tiara wrapped in tinfoil, & acrylic painted shoes two sizes too small, red & white like a diner. Superpower, read the Instagram caption. 

that fall I gulp down jungle juice in every frat house in the fort, claw for red eyes & sweaty fists to piece together the broken glass in my hips. hunt for the girl I was before I met the man with the phoenix tattoo. fill the void, wipe virginity from memory, chug the flask of tequila & feel Invincible. 

stumble through sangria on a sticky bathroom floor, collapse down the shower drain. crowd fizzy & dark like jack & coke. be carried out to chants of Wonder Woman down! & puke out the window of the pledge’s Infiniti. be carried up to the 7th floor of a high rise by 2 faceless men, awake at 4 am, on a loveseat with a dead Iphone, to hurl up bright orange regret into the sink. 

at 11am November 1st, in rags of the night before, eyes smeared like grief, I walk home. I make it halfway down the strip before the honking flips my stomach like a keg stand. eyes on the concrete, hands crossed over my chest like a saint, my red Chevrolet Blazer is dead at the top of the hill. I call a man I ghosted to jump me off. & he laughs & I swallow my lips like shame & I have never felt so weak.