title: How To Take A Bullet: And Other Survival Poems
author: Hollie Hardy
description: HOLLIE HARDY can teach you how to survive anything. She is an adjunct English instructor at Berkeley City College and lecturer at San Francisco State University, where she received a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry. An active participant in the local Bay Area literary scene, Hardy co-hosts the popular monthly reading series, Saturday Night Special, An East Bay Open Mic. She is one of the founders of the annual Beast Crawl Literary Festival in Oakland, curator of Litquakes of Poets, and a former Editor-in-Chief of Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review. Her work has appeared in The Common, Eleven Eleven, Milvia Street, One Ded Cow, Parthenon West Review, A Sharp Piece of Awesome, sPARKLE & bLink, Transfer, and other journals. She lives in Oakland, California. www.holliehardy.com
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  # BOUND BY DESIRE
  
  
  Summer struggled against her bonds, but she was helpless. She tried to cry
  out, but his hand covered her mouth, muffling the sound. She paused and the
  hand moved slowly across her cheek, down her slender throat. Her pulse raced
  unexpectedly. Her whole experience with men consisted of one or two chaste
  kisses behind the palms at the annual debutante’s ball. Her eyes held his, and
  it was he who looked away as he pulled the big knife from his belt.
  
  
  “Please don’t kill me,” she asked simply, knowing she couldn’t stop him. He
  paused, the firelight gleaming on the blade.
  
  
  “I will never hurt you, Little One,” he promised with a shake of his head. He
  reached, and with one lightning move, cut the bonds that bound her wrists from
  behind her.
  
  
  Summer crouched, ready to run past him.
  
  
  “Not so fast, my frightened little deer,” he said smiling. “Now you are going
  to repay me for saving your life. And I expe