This poem is for the *******.
The ice princesses.

Solid and frozen.
Hearts carved from arctic stone.
Jaw lines so sharp they could *cut you.
Girls so bitter, *they bite.

Leave your mouth aching.

This is for the evil stepsisters,
The Ursulas,
The Queens of Broken Hearts -

I’ll tell you.
They are deadly beautiful.

They are the bossy, and the terribly too honest.
Mouths on fire,
jaws snapping,
man eaters,
sirens of the sea,
they will swallow you whole.

When the boys ask -
Tell them, no, I don’t need saving.

**** being a princess.
Be the dragon.

Be fire breathing, and pmsing.
Be angry, girl.

Cause you got **** to be angry about.

Every cat call –
Every glass ceiling you will shatter with your bare hands –
Every time you say the word no and mean it –
Every time they make you feel like you anything less than powerful.

You tell them –
You are eternal.

That you carry a generation in your belly -
That it all begins and ends here, inside you.

That you can bleed for seven days straight and come back with teeth sharpened for war.

Remind them that that when something is taken from you, you will do everything you can to get it back.

You will destroy what destroys you.
Eating fire and spitting brimstone.
And never, ever saying sorry.

They will call you crazy.
They will call you over emotional.
They will call you loud mouth.

They will ask for your smile, pretty girl.
Give it to them with poison ivy lips and a razor blade between your teeth.

What no body knew was that Ursula was King Triton’s sister.
A perfect storm.
Banished from the palace -
When a loud, powerful woman gets out of hand, we don’t call it leadership.
We call her dog.
*****.
Bossy.
Fangs out and snarling, we don’t battle, we cat fight.
**** kitten gone wrong, when she learns to leave scars.

A dog, no not a dog, a wolf in heat.
Domestication is a ***** word.

***** is to know your worth, and take it.

To carry it in your esophagus.
A war cry.
Feeding your enemies to your children, and coming back starving for seconds.

Doing anything to stay alive.

Because you were raised by a mother who fed you fear for supper.
Packed your backpack with mace, and brass knuckles.
She told you to turn your body into a weapon.
She knew there would be men who would try to cover your mouth.
So she taught you to bite.

This is how you protect yourself.
A mouth full of *****, and a bark to match.
“Beware of dog” sign around your throat.

This is how you keep them away.
This is how you warn them.

Because the villain was not always the villain.

She was made that way.
You were made this way.

You’ve got brands still healing, still smoking, skin still searing.
You’ve got a trauma written in your blood.
You’ve got a ribcage holding onto your heart too tightly.

You are chasing down a revenge so sweet it could rot your teeth.
A heart attack romance asleep in your chest.

You will come back home limping after this war.

And you will tell all the other girls -

It ain’t all about the love story.
**It’s about the “being in love with yourself” story.

They say women are moody creatures
But I think men are still worse
The only difference between the two
Men don’t get the monthly curse
They’re moody when they get hungry
When they haven’t got their beauty sleep
In fact they don’t seem to need a reason
To turn into complete bleep bleeps.

I write my best poems when I’m PMSing
Because my emotions are on high
And I
Have an attitude
Like, “**** it!”
So I don’t overthink
The words
And also
Because when you’re lying in bed
With cramps
You have about two other options:
Watch videos
Draw
And both of those get old
After a while
So I write poems instead

Some days I do not
want to wake up
the day just seems darker somehow
There is no particular reason
I am feeling down
I just am...

I have been trying to come up
with some explanation and cannot
maybe I am just tired
maybe I am PMSing
maybe I just need to get some

Whatever the reason
It is not like I can just snap
my fingers and get it over it
Like some people close
to me have suggested

What I really need
is someone to pull me
into their computer out there
and hug me and don't let me go
I want to stay for a bit with you
until I am not feeling so blue

This country was founded on the idea of being who you are in liberty, yet there are people trapped in closets because the monsters are on the other side and the darkness has become too comforting at this point; the face of death has become too beautiful to want to turn away. We are hidden, dancing around the idea of being hung as perfectly as that shirt that was “too gay”; planning our proposal to the Grim Reaper because, at this point, he is the only man who can “turn us straight”. We’re rolling out our blueprints and studying the structure of surviving instead of accepting that we’re different and actually living. The pride that used to live in us died a long time ago, maybe around the same time we were in the closet writing our suicide notes; for others, it was the day they were calling their loved ones for final words before their pulse was devoured by the hurricane.

This country was founded on the idea of being who you are in liberty, yet it was built off blacks and Native Americans forced into captivity; sold and sent off into slavery. The basis of this country is “freedom”, but… I’m still trying to find the point in time when we practiced what we preached, um - have you heard the joke about the Annoying Orange? He was elected president. No, wait, I think it was actually part of a horror movie. I’m sorry, was that racist? Because there are people on twitter who rant about how “REVERSE RACISM DOES EXIST” and “WHITE OPPRESSION”, now please don’t get offended, but it’s 2017 and the true founders of these divided, yet technically united, states are being held at gunpoint simply for being born that way. Just when we thought the crackling of our spines was enough to run the white boys away, they had to send their dads in to drop charges labeled “thief”, “****”, and “felon” on our shoulders until they crushed our will to live. Now don’t have hope on justice for that is nothing but a fairy tale. If you haven’t already realized, the dragon of their arrogance grows the more they see us fail.

This country was founded on the idea of being who you are in liberty, ...but we forgot to include women in the subtext. Did I say “we”? I’m sorry. I meant HE, and not HE as in God who created you and me, but HE as in the Annoying Orange and every Arrogant Coconut elected to run this country. Apparently, we must conform to their manly mentality, their barbaric way of living because

“Women are too emotional”

“She’s probably PMSing”

But tell a guy he throws like a girl and watch his estrogen crawl from the deepest corners of his eye sockets as he runs away; their faces flushed with shame… because being feminine is something to be ashamed about. Throwing like a girl is offensive. Losing to your girlfriend in 2k is not Ok.
“You must obey me” they say.

“You belong in the kitchen”

And all we knew to say was “ok”.

You see, I’m tired of being tamed by men and am regurgitating all these false allegations.

I will not stop eating chocolate cake to please you. I love chocolate cake. It pleases me.

I will not watch my weight to protect your pride. Loving my weight is my pride.

I will not do squats because you want to post a picture of me on Instagram under hashtag thicc. I hate exercising. It’s exhausting.

I will only stop eating chocolate cake when I start to break out in places I shouldn’t.

I will only watch my weight when my doctor tells me I will die otherwise.

I will only do squats when I want to check myself out in my new bikini in the summertime.

This country was founded on the idea of being who you are in liberty, but it’s difficult to get the message across without learning the word “respect”.

You. Heterosexual judging me. Respect our various identities.
You. Caucasian individual. Acknowledge and respect our black history.
You. Cisgender male oppressing my womanhood. Respect your own mother.
You. Liberal teen defending your right to believe. Respect the worn out Cheeto puff.

And you will see…

Maybe one day we will know a free America.

I guess it's true
No one wants me because I am over used
When he loved me with the back of his hand
It taught me to take it like a man
I am  damaged yes I own up to it
And this blood running down my legs isn't the sign of me becoming a woman, but instead is a sign of me being forced into being a scared and scarred little girl
No it's not my period, but a reminder of the period in time I didn't have a reason to vent and rhyme;until I met you.
Scared and
Scarred little girl
Violated savagely by this cruel not so little world
Angry with everything
So when you say I'm pmsing
You're right, I am Protecting MySelf

Rain clouds flooding the sky,
Mother Nature ready to cry,
A storm of unhappiness unleashed.

All her of her feelings multiply,
Piled all into one,
Months of sorrow catching up..

While everyone is shunning her out,
We're not hearing her wishes,
She's just pouring over our heads..

Sung a song of untold,
Tears rolling down the trees,
Flowers smells slowly decrease..

How can we let this happen?
She had given us air to breathe,
A gift to explore living things..

All crumbling down into flames,
Burning and turning into ashes,
A graveyard of beautiful tombs..

Mother Nature isn't happy,
Killing all things with her power,
Hurricanes are stronger than ever,
Maybe she's just PMSing?

To love me is a complicated task, trust me I know,
for not even I can stand:
the endless bitterness and depression,
the constant PMSing and aggression,
the insecurities and lack of affection,
and don't even get me started about the brutally honest confessions.

To love me is a complicated task, I know it is true,
because for the longest time,
I struggled with that task too.

To love me is a complicated task, so sweetheart don't even try,
unless you are willing to compromise with me, whereby,
the only deed you must achieve
is become my best friend,
a person I can fully trust and love till the end.

it sometimes scares me
the feeling of being too wrapped up
too analytic too critical
too blind
to see the light
in every moment.

this foggy state of earth
seems to greet me
on my front porch
often
when there is a lot
on my mind.
maybe i'm pmsing.
i feel words
resting on the tips of my toes
and i am trying
to bend my back down
into freedom.

i know freedom is not like that.

mostly
when i breathe into a stretch
reaching
towards the earth beneath my feet,
it comes easy.
freedom

should come easy.
it does...

most days.

I wish they would’ve told me about EDNOS
Eating disorder not otherwise specified
That just because I don’t throw up or starve myself extremely
Doesn’t mean that I’m fine

But they didn’t tell me
So my EDNOS I kept to myself
I thought that it was just me
That I didn’t need help

I wish they would’ve told me about real depression
That it’s not always sudden
It can creep up on you
That it’s not always so obvious

But they didn’t tell me
So my depression I hid
I thought that if no one noticed, then it didn’t exist
That I didn’t need help

I wish they would’ve told me about real self harm
That it’s not just cutting
Self harm is hurting yourself
And it isn’t always ******

But they didn’t tell me
So I told myself that it wasn’t self harm
That biting bruises in my arms was ok
Scratching myself to cope wasn’t really self harm

I wish they would’ve told me about anxiety
That it’s unexplainable to anyone
How one minute your fine and the next
You feel like you’re dying

But they didn’t tell me
So my anxiety I dismissed
My fears weren’t explainable
When I couldn’t breathe, I was fine

I wish that they told me that it was about me
How I felt
How no one could invalidate my issues
Even if I didn’t fit the definitions perfectly

But they didn’t tell me
So when my mom said I was PMSing
Myself I started second guessing
Maybe how I felt was normal

Above all I wish they would’ve told me to tell someone
That handling my health by myself is hard
Too big a burden to handle on my own
You can’t use your mind to fix what’s inside your mind

But they didn’t tell me
So I struggle alone with my depression and anxiety
I suffer in silence with the evidence of my self harm and EDNOS
And soon they won’t be able to tell me anything anymore

Suicidal when I’m pmsing
But I’m still alive we’ll call it a blessing
Imma try to tell my story if I cry don’t mind it just try to learn my lessons
True love shouldn’t be a tragedy
I romanticize our relationship but just like Romeo and Juliet there is no happy endings
This love is poison, an addiction, and I’m in recovery
Rehab is a love story, a sad story
My mind is going numb with your absence
I’m trying so hard to keep my cool
I choke down my tears, my fears, I just wish they taught about this in school