Don’t you dare tell me it’s love,
don’t you dare tell me it’s “just life”,
when you’ve never carried the weight of choice,
when you’ve never had hands force themselves,
when you’ve never looked at your own body and felt—
disgust, betrayal, rage—
for something that was never yours to begin with.
You’ve never been thirteen, shaking in a cold clinic waiting room,
heart hammering with fear that the world will hate you,
body carved open by guilt, by doubt,
the shame tattooed like a brand on your skin.
And you think you know what love is?
You never see the hidden scars,
the marks left by hands uninvited,
by voices saying “boys will be boys” while my voice is silenced,
a whisper swallowed by the same mouths that judge me
for what they took.
Is that justice? Is that your idea of freedom?