What we idealize
We condemn.
Strip it from the backs
Of those we oppress,
Notwithstanding ourselves.
Cram it in a box marked “DO NOT TOUCH” -
A false preservation.
Fasten wonder and difference in
Wax-body museums.
The overture of youth, displaced.
Forcibly removed and
Compartmentalized until
Homogeneity reigns supreme
In the halls of collective memory.
Admonishment replaces admiration.
The administration demands -
How dare anyone have what
We stole from ourselves?

hollow cardboard reach
and the destitution of the earth
and lives that don’t matter
the open wound of living under capitalism
a horizon of black spots
mangled neurons
worthless towers lined to the sky
production unto pollution
putrefaction
and the whole end
the whole ******* end
the whole
queers ***** in prison
blacks killed in custody
xenophobic masturbatory farmers decimating the land
modern death is class war
race war
gender war
a systemic genocide through slow violence
laws drafted stressing interpersonal violence over corporate negligence
social stratification
unequal access to housing, food and education
MAY 68
**** your gender binary, your race hierarchy, your CV, your Christmas, think positive *******
**** your borders, your ****-apologising, your colourblindness, your class privilege, your white fragility, your selective free speech, your hegemonic masculinity, your silicon valley entrepreneurialism, your cultural imperialism, your meat industry, your deforestation, your ******* accommodation, your debt economy, your war economy, your prison economy, your unpaid women’s domestic economy that upholds the entire heteropatriarchal world
**** YOUR CAPITALISM
precarity unto subjugation, alienation, destitution
an increasing youth suicide rate
an inflation rate rising faster than minimum wage
a lack of jobs while you tell us we’re worthless beneficiaries
a system that chases profit at the cost of existence
the entire concept of meritocracy
debt as a promise of payment yet to exist
enforced return to nothing

this feeling of rage enters my soul
I want to be one of those people I see in the news
and irrationally beat up this man
it's not even irrational

how the **** did men get the agenda that they can touch women
get away with it like a kid gets away with food on their face
on one it's endearing, on another it's ******* assault
we're helpless
we're broken down
we're defeated
we shout into the void, waiting for an answer

nothing comes.
you learn to **** it up.
you learn to avoid that devil's company.
you lose faith in humanity.

70 years of supposed independence
Yet no real freedom for women
In a society dominated by men
Drowned, is a woman's voice
We need Azadi from Patriarchy
Money and power aren't everything
Without love, life is nothing
Above all, are relationships and life quality
Is there no end to ****?
Why is marital **** legal?
Our system is so feudal
Marriage is such a shame
Marred by domestic violence
Divorce, a traumatic experience
No freedom to choose her career
Family is supposed to be better
No freedom for inter-religious marriage
If she does, it's labelled Love Jihad
Frankly, we are tired
Demand an end to this carnage
She can dress as she pleases
She can roam at night
She can marry anyone she loves
To question her, you have no right

My name is my submission to male dominance
     I am somebody's daughter,
     somebody's wife.
I willingly call myself so
     It's because I love my father
     I love my husband
And I am honoured to be called
In his name
Usually

But sometimes
When a ray of anger rushes into my heart
By the feminine idea of self-respect
I wonder
     if my father loves me, why is his love trumping of my mother who bore me inside her body for months of restless ease?
     if my husband loves me, why has he never consider calling himself Mr. Mine, where he my husband and I his wife?

But I tuck these thoughts away
They are too balancing of power, too simply different.
I mustn't let the patriarchy hear, or I will dishonour my worth
As a woman.

At times what a man can own
Is a house, some land, a home
A woman, a wife, his daughters
But not his sons or his father

A man's voice is respected unless his pitch is too high
Because a woman's voice seems just way too shy
And a high voice sounds like a woman's: inferior
Because all we are judged by is our exterior

He does not typically write sweet refrains
He does not feel any monthly pains
His feelings are for the inside
He doesn't love, only shows pride

And how does he go on living thusly,
Showing love, but only roughly?
Where does he grow? Can he ever know
That his own son's heart groans when he goes
About spouting prideful privileged words?
They attack me like preying birds

And I am the fawn, to whom no one belongs
I am the heartbeat and the aching due to wrongs
I am the taken aback by art
I am the trembling of a heart

So then here I sit, so very distant from him
Yet still a mirror image of him.
With my chromosomes resembling his,
I observe roses while he throws words like fists

He possesses objects even if they're humans
He tells them what to do for his own amusement,
Locking his heart far away until it becomes
A fabled leviathan he keeps from his sons

Dear Patriarchy, how you've stolen my claim to normality!
How your disadvantaging of others is an intrinsic reality!
Keep your *****, dying hands away from me
Your grasp forms almost everything I can see

I didn't want you upon entering this earth
I haven't wanted you since the day of my birth
But my rebirth has found me dying from what you do
While you're slowly decimated, We all still die too