I want my complexities
to dazzle my company
Make them think that this poetry
Easily flowed out of me
Like it was simple artistry
Like I don’t suffer from anxiety
Like I don’t know insecurity
Like I didn’t lie awake all of last night
feeling inadequate when I realized

This was all I was going to write

Your eyelashes
lie closed
as you lie on her thighs
Seeped in comfort
you rest for a while

I wonder what she holds
that I could not find
Why her lap
became home
over mine

What is the hardest thing
about being
a woman?
He asked me
In sincerity

I thought
Meditated
Pondered
And debated
For many weeks
Thereafter

What is hardest
I replied
Is that I could explain

Every pain from my anatomy
Every smack on the ***
Every “*****” yelled towards me
Every law that was passed
Every asinine standard
I’ve strived for unseen
while the man I adore
ogles girls
on a screen
Every injustice
Every **** case unheard
Every “no” ignored
Every dream deferred
Every time I felt less than
A man

And you still could not understand

I will not push you
to put pen to paper
to choose to call

It should never have been
a choice at all

Hours pass
Fingers grazing glass
Denied
the touch of skin
I wait
I ache
I contemplate
Till sun meets sky again

I hope someday
Not long from now
I look back and understand
Why I had to spend these nights
alone
holding my own hand