This is real poetry. Fierce and beautifully controlled. The voice never asks for permission, and that gives the whole poem its force. “a kennel of wolves they mistook for a throat,”“little kings of theft,”“a kingdom buried under the sternum,”“my blood keeps strange arithmetic”… those lines don’t just sound strong, they build a full inner world with its own laws.

What makes it hit so hard is the refusal to translate yourself into something easier for others to use. The poem understands exactly what it’s defending. “They mistake silence for vacancy,”“They do not know the architecture of my keeping,” and “what was not given / became power” all carry that same hard-earned authority. It feels defiant, wounded, intelligent, and fully in possession of itself.