Why Women Crave Blood

Because of Anne Rice.

Because of Joyce Carol Oates.

Because of what the rooster knows, and the spotted hyena.

And the laughing hyena. Because our juices make us affectionate, smart, and funny. 

Because we haven't been invited to enough parties, or the right ones.

Because even when we are, we want to run out the door. Because we have an instinct for friluftsliv.

Because of the scents of Grandma's furs and Grandpa's butcher apron.

Because the baby sucked us dry.

And now the baby is delicious.

Because we learned from the wolves how to mother.

Because the kitten rubbed off on us.

Because of the Pussy Riot and the Sapphic Musk.

Because men with seductive voices sang their heavy metal songs at us.

And let in the incubus.

Because we can wear a Wilder Mann suit as well as any man, and we do. 

Because the gods made us this way.

Because we bleed when we give birth, and we bleed when we don't, and anemia makes us cold.

Because we keep the fires that cook the flesh.

Because the ghosts that live in our hearts are still hungry, and now our daughters cry for more.

Because our mates instruct us to develop a taste.

my husband with a deer leg he aged in a snowbank by the driveway

Because we expect to outlive you.

#wokeuplikethis

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Jean Michelle Miernik is the author of Leirah and the Wild Man: A Tale of Obsession and Survival at the Edges of the Byzantine World and The Grove of Thorismud: A Beauty, a Beast, a Slayer, and a Priest.