There will be people in life that you meet
And they will love you like
You are the exact amount of
Change in their wallet
Needed to buy the last
Convenience store
Lottery tickets.

But please,
Remember that you will meet someone
Whose hands have been
Sculptured by driftwood
For whose life the sea has fought for
And yet
They made it to land
To kiss your lips and remind you
That you are not the ticket
You are the prize.

To all the women I've  ever called pretty,
before strong or intelligent,
I am sorry.

I am sorry I made it sound as though
something as simple as what you're born with
is the only thing you could be proud of
when you have crushed the sky.

I will, from now, call you resilient, or extraordinary.
Not because you are not pretty,
but because you are so much more than that.

"Your body is ruined" he says,
"because it has been touched by another man's hands"
before his.
Ask him how many woman's bodies have
his hands ruined,
and,
what is wrong,
in his mind,
with a man's hands that only know
how to ruin a woman's body,
rather than
love it.

It's time for us to reclaim our bodies.

When it rains,
I don't go out to feel it trickling down my skin,
to feel myself being washed away,
my thoughts sinking with the weight.
Instead I grab a raincoat
draping myself around it.
I fear
my clothes clamped against my skin,
your eyes would crawl underneath and
make me feel
less skin,
more bone

she gave me her nudes
she was bare
and naked
and so out
and open
and i willingly
accepted it
because it wasnt the nudes
that showed her body
the physical aspects
that made her beautiful
it was the words
she didnt choose
and the spontaneity
that left her
either from her lips
or her fingers
or ink

she was as bare
as her nudes
and i accepted
her for her.