To the drunken slob who tried to get his way with me at a wedding
To the pig who called out "Mmm, get a load of that body."
And to the total idiots who came into my workplace and hollered
"I'll take a cheeseburger, with a side of you."
*******, I am not a side order
I am the whole ******* meal
I will unhinge my shut jaw
And swallow you whole
With my feminist outcries
With my pleas for the reform of a broken body
A system in which all the parts are not in tune
The arms work against the legs
The heart works against the mind
The cisgender male works against all else
And like all broken things
Most do not intend to be sexist
Most do not understand that what they are doing
Is incapacitating an entire group of people
That it is diminishing them to anything but
We are not equal
Because my body is seen as a play thing
My body is seen as something a man can take and toy with
My body is seen as parts, but not a whole
While his body is composed for him.
He lives in a society that teaches him to take, take, take
But that society teaches us to give, abide, be good
All of which do not work in harmony with each other
Because according to this logic
I cannot make ****** choices
Because mine are made for me.
But I cannot give in to the choices he makes for me
Or they work against my father's wishes.
I am either a **** or a ***** their is no in between
When my entire existence is reduced to what a man thinks fit for me
So to these men who seek to manipulate, control, and take
I am not conforming to society's standards set for me
And I am not your side order
Or for men to pick and choose the parts they want from me
I am my own woman, my own hero
I am my own meal.

To the men who talk down to me
As though I am helpless
Because the parts of my body.
You do not know the meaning of helpless
Until you are being stared straight in the face by fear
Like looking down the barrel of a gun
It's hands strapped around your breathless throat
Point blank range
Eyes closed.
You wait for it to fire
You know it's coming
Words, usually starting with
"We need to talk"
Or
"You better sit down."
You know it can't be good
As tears fill her once shining eyes
And those stars fall into the ocean.
Then you learn very quickly
Almost by instinct
That everyone you love must die.
Helpless is when comforting your mother
Makes you a seamstress.
Stitching her together while you yourself are composed of
False hope
Fading memories
Fear.
Helplessness is when behind this gun is the face of a man
A man you prayed you could trust
But he violates you
Colors your view of the opposite ***
From the time you are seven years old
He ties the noose that you continually hang yourself with
In the years to come.
Helplessness is when you tell yourself you have moved on but
No matter how much therapy they inject into your veins
No matter how many drugs they try to numb you out with
Influence spreads like a virus
Into every area of your life
But since you have become so distantly removed
So adamantly avoidant of this looming secret
Like smoke rising to the ceiling
You notice something lower itself
Whenever you have to face this head on again:
Fear.
See it is a cycle
Helplessness is a cycle
And it always ends in fear
*How can I remove myself from this circle?

The media has taught me
From the time I was a child
That elegance
Is all I am worth.
"Strong female characters"
Have to be encouraged
Have to be the draw of an entire series
Why can't all female characters be strong?
Womanhood is not an industry
Sexuality is not a marketing technique
My body
The flow of my waterfall hips
The curvature of how my ******* move into my waist
Does not exist for your entertainment.
Elegance is a knife in my back
Allowing the split in my spine to control me
Allowing the bloodshed of feminine timidity to cover me
I am not one to be shut down
By the jagged teeth that collapse their jaws on my tongue
I spew fire from my mouth
Not just a dark hole
Not just a lonely home
A home for a lonely voice
A lonely voice for a silent nation
A silent nation of women
Who have had their bones broken
And their wrists tied behind their backs
Forced to ******* society's impossibly standards
For them to suppress their own sexuality
While satisfying a man's simultaneously.
Do not tell me to be elegant
Because my body exerts fury
And I will burn this place to the ground.

Do you recognize me?
Body so sturdy
Heart so loud
Voice so obnoxious
Is bounces off concrete
Echoes through the mountains
Stand up strong kid
Stand up strong.
Do you recognize me?
I have changed.
My body is a burden
Like a weight I drag by a chain
Tied to my feet.
My heart is always breaking
It is a china doll
Delicate and weary.
My voice makes no sense
The words I say make me feel alone
The things I do make me want to crumble
I am not the same.
Do you recognize me?
Darling, last time I saw you
We were happy.
The electric sky was mine
I could walk away
Because I was finally okay.
Do you recognize me?
If you don't,
You are not alone
Because neither do I.

Hold your breath, girl.
Don't feel.
As he places his shallow love inside of you
Every breath feels like a brick
Pressed against your stomach
Collapsing the walls of your lungs
Until you feel yourself gagging.
Let him talk to you
But your words have become rather expensive
As he plays with your hair
As he touches your waist
As you turn away
Because his fingers cannot feel the rivets in your rib bones.
Your eating disorder makes casual *** a little harder
As does your history with assault.
Sometimes, your PTSD and bulimia want to have an ****
They are the extra lovers you never invited
But as you mount on top of him
Trying to make him forget he doesn't love you
And that you don't love him
It seems they are whispering in your ear
Why would any man want to *******?
                         He's all you have.
Stop pretending to be good enough.
Try to let these thoughts slip out of your mind
As you slip out of your clothes
Shedding your snake skin.
You kneel there now
His eyes are resting on each inch of your body
But your skin begins to crawl
Your heart begins to shake
You unravel before him
Every end of you is fraying
And he doesn't even know.
What happened to never doing this again?
What happened to getting over it?
Promiscuity smells like stale cigarettes and ***
In the back of a car
With an older man.
Promiscuity tastes like an empty transparent bottle
You can see through it like everyone sees through you.
Like ice cubes
On your fire slinging tongue
From that shot of whiskey a few minutes ago.
How many minutes ago?
Two hours ago.
Yesterday.
Wake up, girl
Detach
Stop holding on to the shards of glass
That break the delicate flesh
On your fingertips.
Put on a mask
Don't let him know you're dead inside.
Your job here is to
Make him believe you're still alive.

The 2012 US Military ****** Assault Agenda states that
One priority is to improve victim confidence
In reporting these incidents.
I'm glad in the four decades since Vietnam
The twenty four years since Desert Storm
The military is finally deciding to do something
About the **** monster it has always conceded to.
Tell me
How will you improve the confidence
Of those who have been consumed, chewed up and spit out
By vicious teeth that leave their marks on bare skin
On the torn sheets she was passed between
That are stitched together with fear?
Will you stop telling her that she has
"An adjustment disorder"
Funneling her into PTSD programs because you have no other place for her
Discharging her because you fear a scandal?
Squeaky clean reputations of the men you allow
To ***** their hands not with the blood of their enemy
But by the open wounds of their fellow soldiers
Entitlement is evident
When she sits in her apartment shaking
Because the man who attacked her receives an honor
A big production of a military funeral on television
While she was told lies about herself
Released into the world
Told she was dishonorable
Told she had a problem.
He had the problem
His sickness is now hers in the form of a pill
She swallows it as they tell her she is sick
She is wrong
But he is a martyr
Living in his glory even after death
But his secret dies with him.
So, United States military
If you want to improve the "confidence" of these victims
Instead of breaking their wrists
Try holding their hands.

The words on my wrist stopped making sense
I wrote them on with permanent ink
Branded to my skin forever
My soul pretends to understand them
Because at one time, they were fresh
Now scars read like faded tattoos
Like a book full of missing pages
I guess I just never cut deep enough to make a lasting impression.
That chapter of my life does have holes and gaps
It is lost between the angles of verbs
And the misuse of nouns.
My raw red flesh used to tell a story
Now that tale is slowly washing away
But parts of it will remain forever.
Little details
The precise words my father used to describe me
Will someday become a distant memory
But the bigger picture
****** assault that caused cigarette burns and razor blades
To make a home in my skin
Will always read exactly.
While parts of the ink may bleed off the page
My story, my legacy
Will be shown through me.