I do not hate men
I just hate the ones who lie
Who cheat
Who ****
Who abuse
Who disrespect
Who do not hear a word I've said
Ok, I do hate men

He looks me up and down
The way only men know how
He says,

"Tell me again
My **** Possession
Why do we still need Feminism?"

I look him in the face
The classy way that I was raised
I say,

"The mere fact that you asked me this
Is the reason Feminism exists"

He turns and walks away
In the direction that he came

I am reminded yet again
Of our desperate need for change

Keys between my knuckles
As I hurry to my car
This place still aint safe
At least not after dark

I've been female for thirty one years
My *** is abundantly clear
When I cannot walk outside at night
Without my friend called Fear

Keys between my knuckles
Pepper spray clutched in my hand
What can I say to these Testosterone Tyrants
To make them understand?

This place is still not equal
When half of us are afraid
I want to stay up late
Walk the streets and know I'm safe

Boys will be boys
They will rarely be men
The protectors became predators
It's a hard truth to accept

Keys between my knuckles
As I hurry to my car
This world is still not safe yet
At least not for us

I'm the girl that you ignored for all those years
I sat in the back row
Watching my resentment grow

You made fun of my depression tears
You were centre stage
While I was afraid

The girl grew up to be a woman
You never grew up at all

You finally learnt that we are both human
Reality turned out to be your downfall

I'm the girl that you ignored for all those years
I played the fool
While you were Little Miss Cool

Times have changed and now I am OK
You fell off your stage
Into a pitiful state

I get lost in the crowd
The invisibility covers my identity

My voice gets lost in the noise
They can't hear my words and God it hurts

I get lost in the crowd
Their negativity downs out my identity

My voice gets lost in the noise
So I shout so loud I drown them out

we damage our feet
squeezing into stilettos
we pluck our eyebrows
we polish our toes
we **** in our stomachs
afraid of what the scales will show
we scrub ourselves with a thousand lotions
spray ourselves with perfumes
it's as if we need to be sanitised
from the dirtiness that we learnt from the womb
from all the messages that we've consumed
messages insidiously obscuring the truth

it was a dog eat dog world
so i became a cat
i'm clever like that