Don’t call it life,
when it’s my life you’re taking,
my future you’re chaining
with laws you’ll never carry,
burdens you’ll never bear.
You preach freedom but give me a cage,
cutting deeper every time you say
I’m not strong enough to choose,
not wise enough to decide
what happens inside my own skin.
I am not your pawn.
Not a battleground for your beliefs,
not a vessel for your “values”
I am fire and fury and a voice unbound,
and I will not sit in silence
while you tear me down.
This choice is mine—
not yours to steal,
not yours to bind,
not yours to strip away in shadowed rooms,
where you sign away my rights
like they’re yours to own.
This body, this voice, this choice is mine,
I am whole, unapologetically, my own.

Don’t call it life,
when it’s my life you’re stripping,
my body, my rights, my voice you’re silencing
with hands that never held the weight
of this choice.
Tell me,
how is it your right to choose for me,
when you’ve never felt your own body betrayed?
When you’ve never felt the aftermath,
the ache, the anger,
when your life was taken, stolen,
and they asked what you were wearing,
Explained to you how it was your own fault.
How dare you call yourselves defenders of life
when you crush the life in us,
when you leave scars on our hearts
with your careless words,
your polished speeches,
your “righteous fists”.
Don’t you dare tell me what I can do
with this body, this breath, this heartbeat,
like it’s something you’ve earned,
like it’s something you know.
You legislate with hands that’ll never bleed,
never bear the weight, never know the fear—
you write laws with ink you’ll never feel burn,
ink that cuts us open, while you watch from afar.
Tell me,
how is it your right to decide,
how is it your right to choose,
when it’s my life, my body on the line,
when it’s my blood, my bones, my voice
you erase with a pencil?

You never see the hidden scars,
the marks left by hands uninvited,
by voices saying “boys will be boys” while my voice is silenced,
a whisper swallowed by the same mouths that judge me
for what they took.
Is that justice? Is that your idea of freedom?
No, you’ll never know.
You’ll never know because your world isn’t stained with fear,
your nights aren’t haunted by footsteps behind,
by eyes burning holes as you walk down the street
wondering if tonight’s the night someone decides
that your body is now theirs.
I am not your object, your pawn, your game.
Not your pet to control, to condemn, to tame.
I am not a vessel for your morals,
not a canvas for your shame.
This body, my body,
is mine.
Not yours to shackle in laws,
not yours to bind in blame,
not yours to drown in silence.

Don’t you dare tell me it’s love,
don’t you dare tell me it’s “just life”,
when you’ve never carried the weight of choice,
when you’ve never had hands force themselves,
when you’ve never looked at your own body and felt—
disgust, betrayal, rage—
for something that was never yours to begin with.
You’ve never been thirteen, shaking in a cold clinic waiting room,
heart hammering with fear that the world will hate you,
body carved open by guilt, by doubt,
the shame tattooed like a brand on your skin.
And you think you know what love is?
You never see the hidden scars,
the marks left by hands uninvited,
by voices saying “boys will be boys” while my voice is silenced,
a whisper swallowed by the same mouths that judge me
for what they took.
Is that justice? Is that your idea of freedom?

You sit in leather,
sign your names on paper
that ultimately becomes chains,
binding bodies you will never know,
dictating futures you will never know.
you preach protection,
you wrap us in a lie called love,
while you slice away autonomy,
carve out dignity,
turn our pain into a headline,
our lives into statistics.
you do not know what it’s like to flinch,
to walk home at night with keys clenched tight
like weapons, like armor,
you do not know what it’s like to wonder
if you’ll be believed,
if justice even has a name,
if freedom even has a face.