"You're no stray feline,
you're a lady," they will say.
As I trim myself to the pattern they made,
adjure me to learn the dance of their stick.
Turn a blind-knowing stare in a contrivance
of my tragedies, war, and my five inches feet.

"You're no stray feline,
you're a lady," they say.
Fettering my hopes to brew lies in my entrails,
for I have no value without a bind on my step.
Endowed with no shield nor shaft for fight that I was trained,
must cower behind closed doors with a conflict in my chest.

I am no stray feline,
I am a lady, they told me.
Churning and wobbling under their commanding breathe
to flaunt I am more than a dancing bone in a vessel.
But why would they bury my lust for helm and sword away,
and exhort me to put these 3-inch shoes of hell?