So often are women branded
with a scarlet letter
the moment they learn
the definition of the word ‘choice’.
So often is dissent catapulted out of crooked teeth
and whose twisted tongues belong
nowhere close to the temple
that is our bodies
in which we are the god.
The valley of our chest,
ripe with liberty;
a womb like an unmapped terrain
you cannot navigate through
for one cannot simply trudge
a course he knows nothing about.
Our vulnerability is not a curse,
it is our compass;
and your preference versus our worth
makes your jaw grow soft
like how you prefer our nails untainted with red
or our hair longer than short
or our feet glued to the marbled tiles
of the kitchen floor
or laws forged to protect anything
but us —
it looks a lot like silence.

You do not get to weep
for what i choose to lose
in order to not lose myself.
You do not get to dress
your iron fist
with empathy
that is only ever in its loudest,
when it is the emptiest.