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Dusk Jun 2017
Pretty girls get what they want
That’s the background radiation you grow up with
Princesses in every color (dress) waltz across your screen
Pretty curled pigtails and pink ribbons get you more
Than comfortable jeans and the Saints jersey your uncle bought you
“What a pretty girl!” your nana coos, reaching into her purse
Pretty is important, you decide.
So you ask your mom if she can curl your hair for school tomorrow, pretty please?

You’d be pretty if you smiled more
It’s leered at you at the bus terminal
After a long day of work, or school
But you take it to heart anyway
Smiling your way through life
Becoming a magazine cut-out of a girl
With a flawless smile glued on, even when you're tired
Or sad
Especially when you're angry
You decided pretty is important
More important than feelings, than yourself
So you ask your face to stretch a little wider for you, it doesn’t hurt too bad, right?

She was asking for it
He grumbles on the stand
His voice was rough against your paper thin skin and your magazine ready smile
He's right, you realize, as the jury starts to nod
Must have been asking for it, they think, you think
As they wash away his guilt, wash away what he did
Hes squeaky clean now, but you still feel rotten
Your insides decaying as your perfectly composed shell starts to crack.
She must have been asking for it, everyone thinks
Don't pretty girls get what they want?
Caroline Edwards May 2017
I am a girl, I must be weak,
I must know that men are stronger,
I need reassurance that I should be pretty,
All because I am a daughter.

I am a girl, I must love pink,
I must wear a skirt and a dress,
But not too short or I ‘must’ be a ****,
But of course, a ***** would never impress.

I am a girl, I must be 'asking for it’,
I mustn’t object when I am cat called on the street,
Because 'I have a nice ***’ and 'every man has free speech’
And I must want attention regarding the heels on my feet.

I am a girl and I should be paid less than a man,
I mustn’t be able to do the right amount of work,
I am supposed to have a clean job, such as a nurse,
A baker, or a hotel desk clerk.

I am a girl and this is what I was brought up to believe,
I was taught to be anchored,
To never cross the line between the sexes,
To never deceed the standard.

I am a girl and I am strong,
I will not be stereotyped by a colour,
I will never be your 'eye candy’,
Do not underestimate my gender.
Hunter Moyler May 2017
When the Lord split the adam
It wasn't a clean cut.
A heftier half received the whole,
The other a supplicant for scraps at the
Table's Wayside.
(only if it didn't want those stinky leftovers
anyway)

Eons since, not much's changed
The portlier portion still retains
Rights to nuke the other slice
When enmity sticks its foot in the
Meaty muck of the mind

"But it's not my fault," it says,
Still blaming that little snake it likes to hold
Like a teddy bear on a forlorn night

What God hath torn,
Let mankind reassemble.
Joanna Rose May 2017
Do not call me by your nicknames
I can see the poison dripping off your tongue
Do not touch me without consent
This body is mine and mine alone
Do not tell me to stay quiet
My words could spark a revolution
Do not try to control me
My power is unbridled and vicious
Do not mistake me for weak
I am a force to be reckoned with
This poem was inspired by a sexist and homophobic teacher I have
Joshua Haines Apr 2017
Leaf spines do their damnedest
to hold onto broken branches.

"These people -- if you could
                      call them that,"
the old man's shoulders pinch
his bubbling neck, "*******,
******* -- these opinionated
women; my god, I have never
seen the like, no sir."

Mother, why have you left me.
I can smell you on the freshly
                           salted roads.
It is so cold here. The snow
may never stop. The wind
has been picking up. I'm
afraid it may ******* away,
somewhere your direction.

"You see, the thing is, this
country -- no, this world --
has changed so **** much.
It's struck me, fearsome, of
what may stay; what may come,"
he runs his thick fingers through
a rather handsome silver patch,
"I wonder if what I mean to say
is that people scare me?
I don't know what that says
about me or about people."

Father, you sit and you drink,
dying in your work boots;
dying in the arms of my dream;
becoming a man slowly razed.
Your eyes are pale hazel
and they grow apart, as your
tongue pushes out, gone for
a few hours; soon missing.

"Mmm. No sir, I suppose this
world ain't for me. Virginia is
hardly the place I once knew...
You know, my wife, she found
the good in everything -- swear.
Found the good in me.
I envied her, in that one way;
she'd see the good in the *******,
*******, and these women who
just, well, don't know their place.
She'd know. But she ain't here.
Hell, I'm hardly here, tell'ya."

And all my anger I harbor for you,
my mother, I give to the women
I sleep with; the women that
break my heart; the women who
love me forever.

And all my anger I harbor for you,
my father, I try to forget, for you
are my idea of God's love, and
I desperately scratch at your surface,
excusing your roughness injuring my
fingers; forgiving you for covering me
in your blood and everything else you.
Manny Arriaga Apr 2017
“Son,
Bite your nails and make them rough like the burliness set beside you.
Don’t let tears fall like streaked sweat along the fabric of your skin
And speaking of your skin,
Let it dry;
Dry it with the blood of your heart so that men will nod and boys will bow to your feet,
The same way a curtain sways at the touch of strong wind
Let your strong limbs, your embedded masculinity rise within
And roar.
Take down all the boys and rise
Like a man.
Let your hands clash
Like a man.
Let your emotions die and your body live
Like a man.

Stop laying your hands on your hips while you speak.
Stop allowing your razor to cut strands off your legs.
A real man has hair,
Hair that flows like strings across the frame of your limbs
And your sides,
The space between your thighs
And speaking of which,
Let your emotions flow inside a woman for her to love you.
Love a woman like the woman she is,
And be a man like the man you are.
But certainly,
Most importantly,
Act. Like a man.

Show her what’s between your legs
And love what’s between hers.
She won’t refuse
And she won’t cut back.

She loves men.
She only loves men.
She is a girl,
And she’ll only love you if you act like a man.
You must act like a man.
You must dress like a man.
Strip off the layers of feminine odor
Take off that necklace,
Take out that mindset
Undress from that dress of indecisiveness
And appreciate what I gave you.
Clean up those cosmetics.
Clean up your act.
Quit quietly cooking that head of yours
Into the land of ridiculousness.
Change what those demons have created
And act. Like a man.”

But father,
What is a man.
Is a man someone who differs from those with different heads.
Is a man someone who keeps his hair short but his ego long.
Is a man someone who dwells in their own glory but refuses to acknowledge the worth of others.
Is a man tall?
Is a man short?
Is a man big?
Is a man small?
Is that a man who walks the streets in pursuit,
A cigarette dangling from his dead fingers.
Is that a man who feels the soft skin of a flower
Yet too ignorant and too lazy to care for it
So they pluck her while she’s still pretty
Then when bored, leave her to dry in the midst of a desert.
Is that a man who dares call a woman ***** upon refusal
Yet easy when she accepts.
Is that a man who lingers on his own masculinity,
Entrapped in his ****** scent of hormones
Yet too ignorant to recognize the life he could have
If, just if,
He gave a look into the reflection of the water
Just to see himself for once.
Is that a man who makes false claims
Yet lives in complete hypocrisy.
Is that a man who has the nerve to defend lost causes when a woman speaks the truth?
Then I am not a man.
I am not a man.
I never was.

I never was confined in the stereotype you set aside for me,
Nor was a piece in the patriarchy
That was once built with honor
Now wrecked with the tomb of lies that all who were the norm,
Remain the norm,
And stay the norm,
Holding power over all for their own benefit.

I never was a man,
Never like a man,
And never will be a man.

If a man is all you told me to be,
If a man is what all you claim,
If a man is what you took from your father
And gave to your own,
Then I am not that man.

They weren’t demons.
They were me.
Aditi Apr 2017
silently whispers

You're not the allegation of any guy who blames you for leading him on because you have two fatty sacs on your chest.

silently whispers

Your tears don't absolve you of your masculinity, nor your gentleness is something to mock about. Don't let anyone tell you any different.

silently whispers

You are not the lustful touches they give, or the hungry stares. If a man finds you ***** after he has touched you, tell him to look at his own hand.

silently whispers

You're not entitled to give it to someone, or enjoy what has been forced upon you, cause it is a sick imagination of someone else. Your gender does not determine if you're a victim or the culprit, deserving the punishment.

Please don't ever think you're supposed to sit still when someone's hand over stays their welcome, and stray to other places, where they were not invited because everyone says your gender Is supposed to enjoy any ****** act.

silently whispers*
You're not the intentions or the ***** implications of someone who compliments you, neither you accept their unsaid offer when you say thank you.

And when you talk of things like that, you're not supposed to stagger, when they speak out loud-" but I have never done that". Not you, maybe, buy definitely someone else.

speaks out loud
A crime does not stop because you refuse to participate in it, or if you decide to close your eyes. You can't dismiss a problem because you never had it happen to you.
It's not a girl or a boy, who is sexually abused.
It's a person.
Please, proceed onwards after you have this understood
Sexism works both ways
He says "Geek Poet!
Leave the politics alone
Stick to Pop culture"

Cousin.
Politics ARE Pop culture.
don't you see?

in a world where businesses
buy natural disaster insurance
In fear of presidential tweets
McDonald's burger vending machines
You think this isn't dystopia?

We play games to escape.
where can we go
when the "real world"
is just as scary
upside down?

Tell me, Cousin.
Where do you write your poetry?
is it safe?

Do you surround yourself with muses?
back turned to a naked woman?
is there whiskey on the bar,
A journal,
your favorite pen?
Your cell phone,
clentching in the public restroom?

because no matter where you are.
that sanctuary
is a ******* pillow fort
compared to the Fort Knox
of an artists imagination

politics ARE pop culture
China is throwing unfathomable
amounts of money into Propaganda
targeting millennials though memes.
Fish don't see water, remember?

You are telling me
I can't write about politics.
There are Americans
who have never voted,
Radical left and right facebook profiles
protecting and attacking A Racist,
selfish, blemish on our history.
you wonder why we are scared, Cousin?

You want to know why I am so loud?

I watch Men step alligator shoe
out of Boston limousines
Slicked back hair straight
from wolf of wallstreet
belligerent screaming
"I do what I Waaaaaaant!"
"She does what she waaaaaaaaaaaaants!"
"We do what we waaaaant!"

This is the world
we're escaping from.
Excuse me if I break
from the zombie jokes
The vampire romances
Focus on the dead bodies
in our own city, Cousin.

Our demons are real now.

dystopian literature
called for the 2017 election
as far back as the 1930s'

Senator Buzz Windrip
from "It can't happen here"
by Sinclair Lewis
makes promises
to "return America to a better time".
back in 1935

buying validity for his ideas
in airtime on the radio,
tarring those who disagree,
as tools of mother russia,

dismissing woman,
as silly socialists.
naming the press
"a lot of irresponsible wind bags."

In the book "Parable of the talents",
Octavia butler Predicts a "Pox" In 2015
Wiping most of the population.
President Andrew Steele Jarret
promising to return the country
to an "Older Simpler time".
She wrote this book in 1998

Want to learn how to defeat Trump?
Read "Our Twisted Hero,"
by Yi Munyol

Read "In the Heart of the Valley of Love, "
by Cynthia Kadohata

All of these Dystopian fantasies
Prepare the Geeks
to rise up and fight.
Pop culture is the only thing saving us
Knowledge is the only thing saving us
Standing up,
Making art,
Being loud
is the only thing saving us
from the red button
in the orange hands
of the man who NEVER Had
the best words,

Because we do.

Repeat After me:

We The Artists
The Geeks who shall inherit
Swear to protect our words.
We will not bow,
bend,
or break.
Ink is the blood of prophets
The voice is a weapon

Excuse me if I fight
For education over distractraction.
Forgive me for preaching
Art as our gospel.

you can't Incite Revolution
by throwing dice at ghosts.

I am sick of being tall
because my friends
are too busy crawling
I'm putting all my stat points into
inspire

Let me incite placebo healing
for a small fraction
of the tortured
anxiety pretzels I walk along
each day.

I will spit
on anxiety paper-cuts
from this paperback of bigotry
in our future history
labeling myself neosporin prayin'
God,
PLEASE
let me be charismatic enough.
Kimberly Eyers Mar 2017
Women
are not mysterious.

We are not shrouded
in cloaks made from the night sky.

We are not anomalies
or irregularities in the data.

Our nature has been hidden
from men, by men.

We have not been studied;
Not extensively, thoroughly, over centuries.

Not the way men have been, either.
There was no equal footing in
analyses.

Women were test subjects, when men were patients.
When we were "relevant" at all.

This pattern literally kills us quicker.
In medicine, and love.
In the office and the bedroom.
In the workshop and the nursery.

In the kitchen.

In the kitchen.

Some food for your soul:

Everyone is magical.
You don't need a pointy hat and a ******.

Everyone is intellectual.
You don't need spectacles, white skin, or a *****.

Everyone is environmental.
Just go outside.

You just need to be you.

Subscribing to the binary
and rejecting it completely:
One ties your hands,
the other your feet.

Be all the parts of you. Then you can feel
Whole.
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