I do not feel free.
I do not feel free in these clothes;
In these interactions, media, the material under my feet on the carpet.
I do not feel free!
In my words, my voice;
In the way that we have become.
Another person is afraid to be called a Feminist and I wonder, what have be become?
Where are we?
What do we want?
Maybe it's sort of an existential crisis but I cannot make a way out of my chaos without writing it out.
Growing up those books, films manifested into dreams of climbing trees, making wings out of stretched arms and one day, saving the world.
Here I am today, in the backseat of a car, scared of the cab driver at midnight.
They say I am a useless, angry feminist.
I flinch at the word.
Maybe it is true but when I was five, making bouquets of wildflowers I was less angry, less feminist,
...less aware.
I could forget the bruises on my caretaker's face,
or the time my father barged into our room in the night and asked her
"Have you increased your prices or WHAT!?"
only because she refused to sleep with him that day.
It was easy to not wonder then, why she never spoke up or why she kept serving meal after meal after meal
to him when she was crying, sick or numb.
I was caught up with being bullied myself to think more about why that guy
was laughed at for being feminine.
Maybe today I am more scared than angry. Maybe scared is a more acceptable emotion to negotiate my right to equality.
I don't feel free.
What do I do when instead of arguing with a sexist commenter, I want to hug them and tell them
how much I want to cry,
how helpless I feel and how badly
I want this world to be a better place for each one of us?
I am reminded
of the couple of times that my caretaker brought home, baby birds
that fell from a tall tree near our house. Each time she made a home out of stacked twigs in a basket and fed them grains.
I was afraid to pet them but she would hold them close to her fearlessly.
Each time
the birds would die in a week's time.
I always thought the house was too physically, maybe emotionally cold for baby birds to survive.
All I want,
is a house warm enough for baby birds to survive.
Is it too much to ask for?