I have started this letter one hundred times. I have referred to you as my friend, my "cousin", my love. No term seems more right than brother, as you have grown with me, and we have lived our parallel lives. I have known you since the day I was born, and I will know you until the day I die. I have long since memorized each freckle on your face, each vein in your hand, each scar on your hip. I am saying this in the hopes that you will understand why it hurt so much when you looked me in the eye and told me to calm down.

As we skipped rocks in the river that runs past my house, you complained to me about the cousin with the crazy feminist ideals. I laughed it off, and tried to reason with you, trying to teach my dear brother a valuable lesson. That's when you stared at me, with those gorgeous, piercing eyes, and you said, "I know women think they don't have rights, but like...just calm down, okay?"

Not okay. It will never be okay. It can't be okay until boys like you stop ignoring our pain. Stop writing off our suffering as hormones and gossip. Stop telling us that our feelings are invalid.

You have always said that I was your little sister. As children, you were the first to teach me how to throw a punch, so I could take care of myself. You were the first to grab me by the hand and whisper, "I will never let anything happen to you."

If you wanted to protect me, if you wanted to love me, if you wanted me to have what you have, you would not ignore the hardships of myself and my sisters. You would not tell me I'm making it up. You would not tell me to calm down. You would not stop until everything really was okay.

I wonder how much you actually know about feminism, and how much you actually know about me. Once I thought you had memorized each piece I have given you, the way I have memorized every curve in your body, and every corner of your brain. I suppose, looking back, you never were the best listener.

The day before you came to me, angry about the unfairness of your parents. I would never say to you, "I know you think it's not fair but like...just calm down, okay?" When you came to me about your anxiety, I would never say, "I know you think it's hard, but like...just calm down, okay?" I would never ignore your words, would never patronize your pain, would never tell you to calm down.

Something inside of me has been broken ever since that day. The day that I realized that my big brother wasn't always the good guy. Some days, he's the villain. Most days, he's part of the problem.

I will always love you. You have been with me since my first breathe, and I'll be ****** if you're not there for my last. I will always listen, always hold you, always love you, always be here for you. But the one thing I refuse to do is dilute my anger for you. I will not sugarcoat my oppression, will not sweep away my sadness. I will not calm down.

And maybe, with you by my side, we could make things be okay.

As the sky weeps upon my shoulder
I reminisce of a young girl searching for peace
Amongst the cry of a broken home
Consumed with sadness she cries
Imagining a place in time
When ache has passed
A place called home
Where cries of laughter bellow
In song

You boop my nose,
and kiss my mouth.

You hold my hand,
and put my mind at ease.

You leave bruises on my neck,
and make me happy.

I do these things for you too,
and it makes you happy.

The intelligent become deppressed,
while ignorance is blessed.
How will this world continue,
when power is purely within you?

“She walks like the dead, sways like a drunk, dragonflies follow, clinging to her skirts.
Radiant as can be, she’s always in places you’d never even see. She exists in a plane, suppressed in time, only to watch life fly on by.
She’s never seen by the world
She could definitely be felt.
But she roams only the trails she saw, Always afraid of getting lost
I see a girl with a dead pace
And eyes longing for a faraway place
Seems almost hidden in the school halls
But her presence demands to be seen

She speaks of adventure
Desperate to be heard
But her feet remain rooted in the earth
And her eyes in that special place of her
Doesn't it get lonely? girl
Roaming in a forest left behind”

Awkward talk
Curvy hips
Tired soul
Bread crumbs around my lips
Crust in my eyes
Is this skin that i'm in telling a lie

But we're like the branches on an old tree
our roots will never change
But where we twist and turn is a mystery

Because we're human
This is how it will be
The Earth will continue to twirl
We will adore
We will loathe
We will give
We will take
We will rise
We will fall
We will love
We will be

Spilled drinks turn the floor into fly paper; you're trapped.