It feels as if I can’t escape from their gaze
I’ve been hazed into womanhood
It wasn’t a phase
When I was just a girl my ingenue was used
Treated like something that should be abused
And when I served my purpose to amuse
I would be blown out like a fuse
When I was just a girl I learned how to choose
The choice to behave or die
The choice to live in fear or lie
The choice didn’t come simply
And neither did I
And when I was older I hungered
I starved
I wished and wished for something far greater than myself to take charge
But no one was coming to save me
No one but, I
So I made the choice
The choice to lie
And there I lied
As the gaze crept up on me
And grabbed me all over
And in my head, I whispered “Soon, it will be over.”
And when I served my purpose to amuse
I found myself quite confused
I was no longer the girl I once knew

I could never love myself through the male gaze,
every part of me dissected into something that is nothing
objectified and dismembered into significantly insignificant categories
criticized, and ostracized from humanly functions
only to be put on display
as a mannequin.

sometimes i wonder about the kind of girl i would have grown up to be if my trauma had never ceased to exist.

if i had never spent decades of my youth trying to mold my imperfections to the male gazes' views on what it meant to be a lady. 

would i still have lived in the sin that led me to the wages of death or would i have lived freely with the spirit of the holy that showered me with serenity?

would i still have fought so hard for the freedom and solace that had never belonged to the violence of the patriarchy or would i have sat crossed legged in a chair like the woman my ancestors would have rendered me to be?

would i still have let the boys that masqueraded as men, see the forbidden depths of my God given body or would i have clothed myself with competence and capability? if my trauma had never ceased to exist, would this version of me just live to be seen as an example of who i never wanted to be?