How can they say what MY nature is?
That what I was born with dictates my temperament.
I must nurture and endure the pain,
Allowing my body to be distorted and bloated,
All for some husband to have a mini-him,
And to add to my constant laboring.
Men socialized to treat a wife like a mother,
Coddled and fawned over by her,
Allowed to come back from work to a home cooked meal,
While their wife's endless work never ceases.

Don’t knock.
Just rattle the door like the wind did
that night I sat in the bathtub
eating ice with a steak knife.
Bring your worst self—I’ll know what to do.

I’ve buried better men under worse moons.
Named stars after bruises and made constellations
out of what never touched me.
Still called it love.
Still called it mine.

I painted my ribcage lavender
to trick the vultures.
Grew silk in my throat
just to scream prettier.

There is no map.
Only muscle memory and perfume
that smells like the lie you almost told.
The one you rehearsed
but lost the spine
to say aloud.

I practiced not loving you
like it was piano.
Every night, slower.
Quieter.
Wrong keys, on purpose.

So if you must come,
come wrong.
Come ruinous and unready.
Come like someone who forgot the story
but wants to hear it again.

I won’t read it to you.
But I left the pen uncapped.
Go ahead. Ruin the rest.

Here, men bore infants—  
Banners across the poles.  
A crown he deserves.
The lady must bow!

She works 9 to 5,  
As he stays at home.  
Nine months of scrutiny—  
Bless him! How did he hold?

Give him some space,  
Hold the king high!  
Oh, the cramps he must face—  
Could she ever now?

Give her a veil, for she must cover.  
Oh! He looks after the kids—  
God’s descendant! A throne we must give.

Let him cry, for he feels pain,  
But the lady must not.  
How thick her skull must be!

Give him some space,  
Let her take care of the kids.  
Sick he must be—  
Of all the chores he did!

Ahoy, Utopia!  
Roles reversed,  
Here everything would change—  
For nothing, or for the worse.

I remember the time in summer camp
when we could either go swimming or paint.
Despite how much I loved to paint,
I followed my crush to the pool,
thinking my bared skin might catch his attention.
I watched as he jumped in the water,
played football, and wrestled with his friend.
He had made no compromise,
didn't change his plans because I was there.
I remember coming back to the cabin
where my friends stood with their acrylics.
Where along the line did I learn
to abandon myself for merely the possibility
of male attention, approval, appreciation?
How early was it cemented in my brain
that I am just an object to be admired
and should try at every given moment
to put myself in someone's line of view?
When did it first happen,
and how long will it take me to deconstruct,
to decentralize this gnawing belief
that I am nothing if I'm not perceived?

mothers provided homelessness
to get a job
and now
walk the streets, terrorizing men
what do we do

well you **** people
so you can go shopping
it is called shopping addiction
and little boys and girls who you hate
die in the receipts of your smile

you don't see, but we get abused
by the freedom we have
as you grow and multiply
the fat gross arms come flying
mouth flapping
disgust in your eye shadow
exhausting demons of news

desert mules trampling slaves

men fought this civil war, under many titles
so the gold and silver and logos of banking
would never touch our graves

and the beasts stampede, ugly and weak
blind justices of empty delivery
abandoned mirrors covered in shame

To be a woman:

To be a woman is to bleed.
From between our legs, as young as nine, when the only worry in our young minds should be about scraped knees from riding bikes and scooters, the visceral meaning of womanhood begins to leak through the soft cotton amour of childhood.
The impending doom of what could be warded off by a child's imagination has cracked and no longer can be repaired.
This is the fate of a woman.
From that day we bleed.
Shoving gauze of soft smiles and politeness into bullet holes bore into our bodies by men.
Anything to stop the bleeding and remain a fragment of the person we once were.
We’re blithe in the presence of grown men that become aroused to the notion of humiliating us.
We try to feign ignorance and keep a straight face in times of turbulence to maintain modesty.
Our nails embedded into our palms, we bleed.
And a storm has formed.
Through the storm we seek the same refugee we watched our mothers seek. Always thinking that the outcome will be different.
This one is not the same.
We’re not our mothers.
Our love is different.
It’s respected.
It’s mutual…
as long as you’re the one doing the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning and you pay your half and you look after the child that you nearly bled out for.  
Nurturing, tending, cooking and cleaning and ‘whoops’ watch the knife…

bleeding.
Always bleeding.
It’s equal love though, isn’t it?
It’s what you wanted, right?
When you bore two children and you’re raising three, that’s what you wanted. That’s what you bled for.
That’s what you bled for?

Who has he bled for?


He walks into the kitchen, boots scuffing the linoleum on the way.
Dumping the scrapped leftovers of love you gave him in the early out of the morning into the trash and tossing the containers into the sink.
He pats the heads of the people he pretends make him whole and goes to the shower to rinse off the 10 hour shift of hard labor that didn't involve his family.

You don’t expect a kiss at this point because you learned that asking for what you deserve could come with a broken orbital socket.
So you let your heart bleed.
You bleed it into your kids.
You let them know that they are loved.
You pretend that everything is okay.
You go to work, you come home, you bleed and you bleed and you bleed.

Hopeful that your daughter doesn’t see.

Am I too much?
Hard to swallow, a bitter pill?
Am I raw and unprocessed,
Undiluted, concentrated,
Too spicy for your stomach?

Good.

Choke on it.

I won’t cut myself
To bite-size pieces.
I am not a convenient product.

My feathers are not plucked,
My hair is unshorn,
My feet are unshod,
And the muscle of my thigh
Is for kicking, not meat.

Do you not like the taste?
Poor spoiled glutton,
You cannot acquire it.

Find your refined sugar elsewhere –
I do not come pre-packaged.

lurking in the shadow
to hunt her down
to put all the blame on her
there’s a man dressed as clown

was it that “her clothes too short”?
was it that “she was too easy”?
reasons circled around
there’s a man dressed as clown

clown is unapologetic
clown is a predator
clown is a hypocrite
there’s a man dressed as clown

Gleaming from their natural glow
They walk
Eyelashes grown from pure innocence
They speak
Lips died red from tomorrow's sun
They stand
They're strong women: they fight

Mind crafted like an artisans glass bowl
But they don't shatter
Heart flowering like a rose bush
But theres thorns
Courage like a thousand burning flames
They stand
They're strong women: they fight

Gleaming from the tinted paint
I walked
Eyelashes covered but never healed
I spoke
Lips burnt red from yesterday's sun
I stood
I am a woman: I will fight

Mind broken like a cheap glass bowl
I'm shattered
Heart wilted like a frozen winters flower
Left with thorns
Courage burnt out like a dying flame
I stood
I'm just not strong like those women