#gendernorms
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.
Mar 3, 2025
Mar 3, 2025 at 9:24 PM UTC
Serenity.
Graceful
Laughter,
A ringing
Bell.
The wind
gently Rustles your hair, it lives
hugs flows as your fingers open
life Caress a primrose as to
with Soft as the swing of lo
sm Your hips as you dance. ve
all The pink flush of your te
wi Cheeks, the caring ars
sh Lilt of your chime. and
e A vessel pouring cr
s. Out your fragile y.
Heart for all
weak ness
does not
hi de.
Fe el.
My beautiful gentleman,
Be alive
Nov 6, 2024
Nov 6, 2024 at 8:27 PM UTC
It must be bad, if the father weeps-
If the mother screams, if the sister gives, if the brother does not eat.
It must be bad.
Dec 9, 2023
Dec 9, 2023 at 3:20 PM UTC
Constantly I must take off the hairpins, the embroidered shirts, and the lint skirts. I must sit on the wooden stool and unbraid my hair, then proceed to cut it short. I must be able to live without them: the conditioning
–their idea of womanhood(genderhood)
Every once in while I must banish them: to know
I can live without them; they are not me ( all those ideas, all that heavy jewelry)
—I am free; I do not weigh
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 6:55 PM UTC
There is pretty
bubbling
a faulty science experiment
on the verge of the most compliant shade of peach
blanketing itself even beneath the dirt
of my fingernails.
Daddy can you open this?
Because spoonful’s of
Mommy can’t
Never sat well
on the tip of your tongue
nor the bottom of your stomach.
The click
Resonating in my ears like a clatter
of spinning off the head
Of a bottle of red polish
Black clouds of acetone
and nights worth drowning
in salty tear-duct rain
spill over your fingers flawlessly
the way you wish pretty would
on every square inch
of your not-pretty-enough.
But pretty is all sealed up
In the same transparent plastic wrap
That clutches each brain stem
The way grubby clawed tentacle-men
grab your ***
choke every dose of ill-met
red lipstick mirror encounters
from you
and every you
ten-years in the making.
You look so pretty
on the outside
but no one wants to see
your landmines
zip modesty up to your neck
every morning
before you leave your apartment
to enter a circus
the confines of impending death
each man and each billboard
equally a lion
but please
for the love
of your ugly-fucking-face
ugly-fucking-face
ugly-fucking-face
be pretty
hold white teeth to your skull
and your skull to a fragile pair
of rose-meadow-shoulders
remember to ignore the thorns
relentlessly.
Pretty is easy
as a puncture wound.
Pretty is the only green light
In one thousand miles.
Don’t be a girl—
You’ll be okay.
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 7:01 PM UTC
Blue is for boys
Pink is for girls
What about purple,red, and orange?
Where do those fit in our gender norms?
Is there a place where we can just be?
A human
No forms
Not quietly
But loud
Where boys can wear dresses and girls can make messes
Being proud
That they are free
Not being told
Who they are
So that they fold
Into societies messes
Why can't they wear dresses or cut their hair short?
We need to abort
These silly notions of what it is to be a man or a woman and just be human
Mar 12, 2016
Mar 12, 2016 at 6:45 PM UTC