Aimee Nicole's first collection of poetry focusing on her experience as a submissive in the BDSM lifestyle. It reflects on the vulnerability and care presented in service of another. This creates the need to set clear standards and expectations for yourself and others. Through this collection, she ponders the balance that isn't always successful. She considers the parts of herself that are exposed through submitting. In her experience, incorporating BDSM into a relationship is sort of like driving with the high beams on--everything is brighter and hotter to the touch.
Aimee Nicole's first collection of poetry focusing on her experience as a submissive in the BDSM lifestyle. It reflects on the vulnerability and care presented in service of another. This creates the need to set clear standards and expectations for yourself and others. Through this collection, she ponders the balance that isn't always successful. She considers the parts of herself that are exposed through submitting. In her experience, incorporating BDSM into a relationship is sort of like driving with the high beams on--everything is brighter and hotter to the touch.
Vows
I want someone to put all of their chips down.
If one of us loses, the whole house goes bankrupt.
I want us to lace together without recourse, wire and bone.
Any attempt to unthread would be a bloody surgical mess.
Don’t you want to wrap those pitcher’s hands around my throat?
Feel it pulse beneath fingertips, beckoning you closer…
Stun
I apply stun charm lipstick in the rearview mirror
just to prove I am worth more than a service.
Wet finger and trace my mistakes
to erase bumps in the road.
Weary of kisses that ask questions,
the desire for lips that thread with mine welts.
Amputate these memories of pitter-pattering hips…
show me what a man is or leave the dog when you go.
Uninvited Guests
This body is a dinner party for trauma.
The table is set at the historical cemetery in Tiverton, on animal
sanctuary land.
This way no one can ever make the overdue guests leave.
They finished eating many years ago but won’t take the hint.
I’m tired of entertaining so many needy guests at once.
Picking up their dropped napkins from the floor, refilling their wine.
They are so amused by each other’s presence at the table and won’t
stop chattering.
How long have you known her?
How long will you stay?
Oh yes, I don’t have anywhere to go after.
And this wine is very good.
I take short breaks in the bathroom, sure to lock the door.
In the mirror I notice mascara running down both cheeks in jest.
I don’t remember putting it on.
I never put it on.
My fancy sequined dress is a fine distraction from my puffy eyes pleading with ghosts.
'Submissive,' 'BDSM,' 'queer'; for some, there are too many trigger warnings in the debut poetry collection by Aimee Nicole (published by Laughing Ronin Press). Indeed, poems depict open sexual relations, sexual intercourses in the BDSM fashion, and unpredictable, often offensive metaphors. What prevents the book from falling into the category of the vulgar?
Daily Worship represents the complex, abyss-deep world of the woman, with all her creases, physical and mental. It details intimate nuances that most people hide behind closed doors: how she begs to 'press both thumbs into my throat until you blemish me violet violent;' how she wants 'bruises that blemish sweet memories into flesh.' The author challenges the norms of society, exposing herself to the last bit. She isn't concerned with being judged. She is 'an oddity captured in the papers,' body 'spread out like a buffet,' tied to the bed as Christ on the cross.
Behind the bruises, there is also a struggle with the past. What is striking is the author's fake nonchalance toward the painful memories. They are not the main topic as in many poetry collections after Rupi Kaur. Instead, they play out as a link to connect the past and present, the body and mind. 'I want my body to bear the challenge my mind has been battling,' the author says.
The third layer of the book is a beautiful kind of love, love-longing, love-self-sacrifice. It involves two people - and then three until memories too become a breathing, alive person in-between.
The book starts slow, with seemingly unrhymed poems. After catching the internal rhythm, a reader begins to appreciate the beauty of the language. The author strings words in excellent metaphors and comparisons. Some of the brilliant examples:
'You trailing out from /me like tears that leak from a child's eyes in the night.'
'This beady eyed silence cuts the only /cord connecting us and untethered I wisp away like /dandelion seeds caught in the breeze.'
I gladly recommend the book to readers who find beauty in every act of love.
I received an advance review copy through Reedsy Discovery, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.