they have their hands all over my body
from miles away
across the country
no, across the globe
they have groped my chest
like children with a shiny, new toy
wrapped chains around my stomach
kept the key out of reach
deciding themselves that this is their right

they have given me an impossible standard
and no matter how much self love I have
i still think of starving this chapel
until what protects my body melts away
like a popsicle in a hot summer's heat
i hear behind closed doors
the way they can define me in a single word
they way they reduce me to a single caricature

. . .

it is scary
how many of you do not realize
that you are the "they" i speak of