This is the law that supersedes all
Other laws:
Thou shalt not complain.

Thou shalt have a successful career
𝘢𝘯𝘥
Shalt be a perfect mother.

Thou shalt be innocent and experienced,
Rebellious—
But not too much.

Thou shalt never need help.

Thou shalt never age
Yet maintain a veneer
Of self-acceptance.

Thou shalt not be overly
Emotional
But thou art not permitted to be
Robotic.

Thou shalt be assertive
But lo upon the woman
Who dares express anger.

Thou shalt have infinite patience.

Thou shalt be progressive without
Challenging the status quo.

Thou shalt carry thy burdens with
Immeasurable strength and without
Disintegration or failure.

And ye shalt do these things, that
Ye might become the 21st Century
Woman.

I know I should find comfort in predictability
Haven’t I had enough of having my spine ripped out from behind me?
Yet the way you stare everywhere but my gaze
Midnight messages of what I tempt you with
The blatant absence of personality in the words you choose to describe me
Pretty
Funny
Smart
All trademarked generically
by countless machine operated boys I have played with before
Bore me past the point of even fleeting interest
So I fantasize about the beginning of cannibalism
Gory eroticism in the form of utter consumption
Compulsivity unbearable to the point of obsession
Because skin against skin will never sate my satisfaction
Yet I will lower my necklines and gloss my lips for you
Pose, flash on
in the darkness of a shameful Saturday night
And respond emptily to your mechanical propositions–
the only way you can digest me.

Strip me bare of my humanity
Only leaving the empty flesh behind
Does it disgust you?
Musk and desperation
Violating her girlish senses
That throat burned raw
Scraping against the red, hot, constriction
He embeds himself
In crescents around budding brown
Does it make you sick?
As they gawk and ravage
At the sight of the freshly butchered
Rising and falling then still
Sensual with vitality
Yet immature in her fruition
Rotting before she hits the ground
Does it satisfy you?
Empty, bloodless, pleasure
All in your tainted hands
Gorge on my womb
I thank God it is empty
No longer sacred by means
Of all the nameless before you
Finally, place proof of your presence
Your moment of my lifetime
And strip me bare of my humanity
Leave that empty flesh behind.

If you told me what to do.
I'd do it all  and more.

It's the way I've always known.
It's the way I've always been.

From the school bells.
That used to ring.
To the parents that preached.

It seems I'm good at.
Listening with open ears.

Tell me what to wear.
Where to go,
Who to be.
What to say.

Tell me to do your bidding.
I'll bury your bodies.
Hold your secrets close.

Nobody will ever know your damage.
They'll only ever really see my own.

If you told me what to do.
I'd do it just for you.

To be praised.
To be thanked.
To be yours.
To be loved.

It's the way I've always been.
It's the only way I know.

What to do.
Who to be.
How to love.

I was molded to please
Eyes wide in eagerness, smile small
sweetness drips from every word that escapes me
Taught to care, to cater, to serve
I've treated objects better than they've treated me
Don't touch me, I'm all I have left
If I could, I would've raised myself
Raised her to be stronger, louder, braver
I would've loved her more
If every hand that touched me left a mark,
where is my skin?

They'll call her ruin.
They'll call her shame.

They'll never call her,
by her name.

Once the deed is done.
Her world it shakes.

As all her secrets.
Are laid out bare.

There is no hiding.
This ruined girl.

They'd call her pretty.
They'd call her smart.
They'd call her art.

Till she fell in love
Then fell apart.

The man he ran.
Like most men do.

Escaping the wreckage.
Of his youth.

The ruined girl,
was left alone.

Becoming a cautionary tale.
Of women's woes.

Whispering through history.
"Be careful with whom you love."

in the afternoon we chew our pills,
sweating the backs of knees, armpits,
blessed the skittering of grass on down-brushed
shins.
pulsing behind our eyes, weeping the veins,
shuddering the voltaic nerves. god,
the excedrin.

I spy
with my little eye,
something beginning with I.
I wonder
if the kids younger
than I, know what it is to wonder.

To dream
of all that's unseen
and the places they've never been.
When sat
do they know how to relax
with just their thoughts as they plait,

their hair
or ears of a teddy bear
adding a bow for a flair,
to see
all their creativity
at the age of only three.

And how
parents let them plough
through screens without
a notion
that this motion
is only just a token

gesture
undress her
she's no saviour.
As she
believes the he
is here to set her free.

Romanticise
see the prize
a body plasticised.
Naïvety
meant to be
girl don't you see.

Plastic
elastic  
please don't be sarcsatic,
she dreams
to be
the perfect thing to see,

but don't you see
it's not meant to be
she.
That girl of only three
now forever ****** to be,

Perfect.

A statement
not a standard,
so please don't do this to her.
Ignore her
for her
one day she'll thank ya'.

I spy,
with my little eye,
someone. Who wants to cry