they told me not to sip too much from the solo cups
if I didn’t want to get ***** tonight.
the feminist issue here is not keeping up
but keeping low, keeping unnoticed, 
staying as safe as that moldy orange in the Safeway,
never gonna get plucked up and ***** that way.


they told me not to indulge my senses and enhance my intoxication 
levels at risk of decreasing my chances of 
survival against a ******
attacking me.


they told me I feel like I need to keep up with the guys with my drinks,
match my stack of cups to theirs, and I just think 
that’s *******, I just want to drink my ****** beer,
but they said that’s how I’ll get *****
well maybe I binge on a lot of bad habits.
I pile them up on the CVS counter like a checklist of things not to do

smoke, spend too much money and time on ebay bidding on
vintage rings and things I’ll never need, eat a row of oreos out of
my roomate’s care package,
and drink too much at the occasional
party where I fraternize with the males from planet greek,
but does that make me guilty for getting *****?


today I woke up feeling like a damaged cause,
like a present that fell out of the back door of a UPS truck going 
75 miles per hour on the highway in East Tennessee
and I never got to my destination.
should I have buckled my seat belt tighter?


society makes me feel crazy for thinking I can try to prevent
a violent act of maddening hate against a woman’s body,
or maybe a man’s, let’s not discriminate,
brought on by alcohol, late night musing, and punch bowl brewing.

maybe they should tell the rapists to keep their pants zipped 
and their ***** to themselves unless they are requested.

keep your hands in your pastel short pockets and 
let me go on with my business of being a proud, righteous woman.