They'll tell you that the big bad boys of hip hop and rap are sitting around writing songs for their little girls and crying

And you'll try to remember what it felt like to cry

And then you'll text back $100 for an hour, $55 for 30 minutes, and $30 for 15, hoping that he won't respond and praying that he will

And then you'll ask him what he wants you to wear
And you'll meet him in dim parking lots, beaten up cars, and then the home he shares with his wife and kids

He'll tell you, "you're too **** pretty to be doing this" in between telling you how amazing you are

And you'll wonder if being pretty means you shouldn't need the cash

And when the timer rings, he'll leave cash on the bedside table, telling you he'll text you when he's ready for another ****

And one day he'll ask you how you do it: how you break up families, how you lie to your friends, how you have *** in the bed you sleep in every night, where you have nightmares about loosing everyone you love

And maybe you'll laugh, or sigh, but you will not cry like the sad fathers loving their little girls because you are harder than diamonds

And the world will tell you that you sparkle

His messy hands make magic pencil
Like holy Gods make worlds
And I know he will someday draw my universe--
My universe
All stars and no suns,
Always so far-- too far
Too cold
My cold hands on his warm chest
Cold hands, warm heart
But my love keeps me warm
Warmer than goose-down coats and wool socks
So much static
So much friction
So many sparks--electricity, zapping
And I am patchwork-quilted memories in his creators' hands

My childhood was sunshine,
summer days,
pool,
book,
trees,
It was yellow dandelion, carpet lawn
and endless blue and green
as far as I could see
standing on my tiptoes
on a swing in the backyard
jumping down onto smooth soft summer grass
in the flat calm ivy-colored sea

It was stars on the night sky
like stars on my ceiling,
hair floating up around me with my dreams,
pulling me out the open window
into air,
into indigo,
into midnight blue, nail-polish painted sky
on the sweet-smelling cedar easel,
in the dark room,
where I come sometimes
to touch the beginning with butterfly-soft fingers

My childhood was hide and seek,
shut up in closets,
smiling,
laughing,
giggling,
yelling tag you’re it,
as it touched board game movers
and pushed them
one
two
three
around boards colored like rainbows
that I rode around the world
and into the universe

Now my childhood is two yellow foam blocks
asking me,
“Why?”
“Where?”
but I don’t know why it’s gone
or where it’s gone to,
all I know is that I’m not ready,
but here I come

I was a *****
When they told me that I “needed” to wear a bra in the third grade
like my eight-year-old body was too ****
And they would want things that they shouldn’t
Like it was my fault for being this way

I was a *****
The kind that got sent to the office for too short skirts and too much cleavage
Already guilty because I had hips and thighs and *****
And I was guilty of making them look of being big of taking up space
My body was an ugly indecent thing

I was a *****.
Not the ******* in the bathroom kind of *****.
Although, given the chance I might have been.
I was the kind of ***** that loved them seeing my body.
The kind of ***** that was great at ******* and better at stripping.

I was a *****.
I was the kind of ***** who faked ******* with the best of them.
Because watching them when they heard me, saw me, felt me coming.
Was unbelievable.
It was empowering.

I was a *****.
I did what they asked because it made me feel like I was worthwhile.
It made me feel like I was valuable.
It made me feel like the pits in my heart had finally been filled.
It made me feel like he didn’t leave me when I was eight months old.

I was a *****.
I pawned myself out like answers to the history test.
Because he smiled.
Because he was the kind of boy that made you want to say yes, yes, YES
And I did what I wanted.

I was a ***** because I couldn't say no,
Yell no
Scream no
Whisper no
When his hands twinned around my wrists like handcuffs keeping me there in the silence

I was a *****
Because even though his hands were touching me
I was too afraid to say so
Too afraid of it all falling apart
Too afraid of being the thing that broke it

I am a *****.
Because you don’t stop being one.
Just because you learn that *** is more than a strategic move.
Because you see the scars it’s leaving.
Because you finally start to hear your broken heart.

I am a proud *****.
I refuse to be ashamed.
My “number” is a badge of honor I wear right above my *****.
Because being a ***** takes refinement

I’m taking it back one word at a time.

*****.
*****.
******.
***.
*****.
****.
****.
Daddy Issues.

I am a *****.
But now I’m the kind of ***** that backs away when it starts to hurt.
When they get rough.
When they bite too hard.
When I can’t hold back the tears anymore.

I am the kind of *****, who stopped giving.
Giving *******,
Giving it up,
Giving little pieces of myself,
Giving a **** what you think

I am a *****,
My ****** is singing rally songs and yelling protest chants
It’s wearing a sticker that says “I voted”
It running around barefoot in a sundress with nothing holding it down
And it’s backing me up in every fight

So call me a *****,
Because I’m the kind of ***** who won’t stop fighting until **** is always, always, always a crime.
The kind of ***** who will never be afraid to say no again.
I’m the kind of ***** that’s going to tear down your patriarchy one ******* brick at a time.
And I won’t stop until I am ****** and aching on the ground where it once stood.

They say Cover it up now
Make it look the same as all the other manufactured bodies,
Being pumped into this assembly line world,
But my body is not the same as those,
It is soft and made of silk in an iron factory,
And the cold metal burns my skin.

Because I have the right to bear arms but not to bare arms,
Telling me that the guns that ****** are the only thing I am allowed to have,
And even though my body is hot hot hot, it will never be killer.

And you tell me that I am like the guns sitting in a shop waiting to be picked out, grabbed, paid for,
Except I'm worth less and and worthless and more disposable
Telling me I'm all hormones and ***** moans
Telling me that I am yours.

But I am not yours,
I am the little schoolgirls with battery acid thrown in their faces
Touched by hands that harm not help
Little schoolgirls that get you big angry ***** shoved into them
Ripping apart their hearts and bodies.

But I am not yours,
I am not even mine,
I am in the freedom,
And that freedom is not in your guns or your yells or your stars,
That freedom is in the plant pushing out the iron girls, girls, girls,

Pushing them out into your world
The world that belongs to you because you claim it
But you're no match for the iron girls and their metal hearts
Taking everything you have and have had
And making it theirs, theirs, theirs

This wasn’t the first time that she had felt suffocated
by skinny girls and standards of beauty.
It got like this every winter,
feeling the heavy layers
weighing her body down.

She never felt comfortable in the sweater and boots,
socks and coats that she bundled up in.
She liked light clothes,
clothes that fairies would wear,
or angels.

Even in summer,
bracelets felt like shackles,
trying to pull her down to earth.
Socks and shoes and pants,
dragging her down.

Coats and hats and mittens,
tethering her in place.
If it was just her
in a sundress and bare feet,
she turned into some sort of ethereal being.

She was like dandelion fuzz floating on the wind.
But the sweaters held her together,
the way that stars and fireworks and splashes of water
should never be bound together
but let explode.

Because some things are only beautiful
if they are coming apart.
And she came apart in wisps
flowing up like smoke
and smelling like lilacs in spring.

On snowstorm nights the lilac sky hangs in the balance,
Lighter than the feather it rises up, up, up like lost party balloons

And the stardust falls like old firework sparks between pricked hair
It lands on the ******* from fall like a crystalline white blouse over ***** ******* in frosty air

Cold-shivers are *******
And toes curl under sheets of ice

Footprints mar fresh womanhood
And shouts turn to ice as they leave blue lips

In spring they melt female to make way for testosterone sun
That burns snow skin like cattle brands— hot

They yell on fire-breath like acrobats in Arabian orange
Scorching feminine and leaving maleness in their wake