A man without gloves on once asked,
“why don’t you fight no more?”
before he swung for my jaw
and I ran down the street,
past the kids tagging walls
and into an alley I’d abandoned
when it still smelled like us,
and when you smelled like vodka.
Last night, I doubled back
and scrawled on the bricks:
“Ain’t nothin’ to fight
that’s bigger than me.”

By Heidi Turner