yes all women

because people cringe at the word "feminism".
because I am not a feminist, I am a woman.
I am a human being.
because this poem is a one-sided sexist rant.
because I was fifteen years old when my mother first taught me about how to hold car keys as a weapon in case anyone ever attacked me.
because teenage girls are taught to never walk alone in a parking garage.
because in elementary school I was told to switch which side of the street I was walking on while going home if a man was approaching me in the same direction.
because when I was twelve my parents gave me my first cell phone for when I was out riding my bike, or taking a walk.
because I can't wear a spaghetti strap tank top to school, as it will "distract the boys".
because boys are distracted by a bony girl in a spaghetti strap tank top.
because freshmen girls are taught not to date senior boys, instead of senior boys being taught not to go after freshmen girls.
because senior boys go after freshmen girls.
because when I was ten years old I told my dad that my grandfather made me feel uncomfortable, and he got angry at me for making such a blasphemous statement.
because even after I told my mother, and she talked to my father, he ignored it completely.
because my grandfather made me, at ten years old, feel uncomfortable.
because when I was fourteen my boyfriend broke up with me since I "didn't put out".
fourteen.
because by ninth grade I had received my first unwanted and unwelcomed advance.
because I didn't tell anyone.
because school administrators turn the other cheek when a girl is ***** in the stairwell.
because **** charges are being dropped by judges.
because victims are being bullied into silence.
because a hashtag is the most sincere form of activism.
because **** is a crime no matter what color you try to paint the picture.

because I will go to bed tonight, after posting this poem, after telling my story, and I will wake up tomorrow.
and nothing will change.

it was the twelfth of october when I first formulated the theory that the world was composed of lines. tangible lines and invisible lines and every other kind of line that lies in between the two. the invisible line that seperates you and I from each other in your bed, two bodies and two heads and one line drawn thin between our skin. the lines around the outside of your eyelids and the scar on your jaw from when you were a kid. its a childhood landmark that parked itself on your face as if to try and keep it's place in the space time continuum of tragedy. the world is composed of lines in ways that everyone who's never seen the inside of your chest will never even know about. the wrinkles in your shirt and the creases on your palms are where I call home and your heart beat is my metronome and I swear I've never known anything greater than the line that's sewn your heart to my own.

it's raining now
and the rain reminds me of you
and how whenever it stormed we stayed inside tattooing our skin to each other
it had seemed that body heat was a glue strong enough to hold us together long enough for me to remember how it felt to fill my hands with your fingers or my mouth with your tongue
it was the kind of summer love that you whispered about in your sleep and wrote poems about on your feet, I wrote about how your eyes were like coffee cups and your skin was an ivory gold that made even december's cold feel warm. winter was long and you were here but you were gone and I tried for too long to memorize your favorite songs and search for myself in the words you would never say, my lips or my hips or my bones or my finger tips. eventually spring came and so did the rain and in a way this makes everything remind me of you, of you eyes and your grin and your lies and your skin. my coffee tastes like the anniversary we never had, and I wish I could say that meant it was bad but it wasn't. it tasted like you and like me, together again, like your eyes and my hips and your skin and your skin.