i was told i could be anything,
so i chose to be a feminist
because
when i suggested my father help with the laundry,
my mother told me i was crazy.
because
meghan tranior's "all about that bass"
is telling bigger girls to be comfortable in their own skin
because skinny girls already do, right?
because
i'd like to make as much as my male coworkers.
because
i was laughed at for wanting to be a doctor instead of a housewife.
because
people look at me strange when i say i don't want kids.
because
when i gave a speech about feminism in my english class,
i was called a man-hater.
because
"my shoulders distract the boy's education".
because
my mom shouldn't have to worry
about what goes in my drink at concerts.

i will be a feminist until
i can tell my boyfriend
"no babe, i'd rather watch the movie"
and i am not told
"you're depriving him of his needs".
until
my body is my body.
until
i no longer have to carry pepper spray on a keychain.
until
women in foreign countries can vote and drive.
until
woman means human.
until
we understand **** culture
and feminism isn't just about women,
it's about humans.

Who would have thought
two years made a difference?
Two years is not that long
in the grand scheme of things.
Two years ago, I didn't know
so much that I do today.
Two years ago, I wouldn't have
made some of the choices I did.
Two years ago, I could smile,
a genuine smile, with real emotion.

If I could go back to two years ago,
I would change what I did,
Warn myself that not everyone is good.
I used to believe that everyone was good
even if they were only good in some tiny way.
I know better now some people will never care
how much pain they cause.
Two years ago, I wish I'd known.

Your eyes are galaxies I want to get lost in

I’m holding my father’s baby teeth in my hands. They’re pressing into my palms the way I wish your nails could. My mother through walls thin as her body is using the bathroom again. My mother has eyes like the antlers of a buck. When it snows my mother is outside with her fingers encircling a purple plant and the plant is now dead. When it snows my mother’s mouth can be seen disappearing into flesh, her face disappearing because it has no flesh. She is standing on the porch again watching you drive. “I Need My Girl” is a loud song and it is playing softly from your speakers.

The last time I held your hand in a car we drove for two hours like Magellan in circles around the outskirts of the town. The river coursing like the chest of a swan just about to take flight. The river coarse as childhood hair, hair without showering. I hadn’t showered in two days. This town would be better with large fields, more cows, some highway and cliffs. As it was: it felt too much like we were driving somewhere; it always does when you are in a small town. We drank from wine bottles shaped like our father’s heads and sat on straw chairs underneath strung-up white lights. The lights were there all year hanging from a tree that in that muddy heat should have been palm.

What it was: this summer your body reminded me of somebody else’s body all lanky, the one difference was that you were there and he wasn’t and now it is winter and neither of you are here and my body is in bed moored by hives the size of your large pale feet.

Father mosquito
drank my blood
and promised me
that there was a lot
to live for:
***, money,
women, love,
food, water.

But *** is only worth
the ten seconds
after I ***:
the ten seconds
where my body breaks
but not my heart.

And money is an idea
that belongs to someone else.
So, the money I have
never really is mine.
The things I need,
I'll never have.
The things I have,
I'll never need.

I do love the softness of women,
Father Mosquito.
You have understood me
once.

It's just underneath
my skin.

But you say love
and no love
is as important
as self-love.
No lips stitched into mine
is worth the feeling
unless I understand my worth,
and you're currently
*******
it
dry.

What happens when food
loses its taste?
And water is no longer cold?
What happens when
my body fails me?
Drink my blood
since it is yours, too,
father.

It's just underneath
my skin.

maybe one of these days,
i'll write a poem simply looking at you.
and it will belong on the walls of art museums
because baby,
you are art
and yes, it makes me feel something.
(s.j.b)