I'm through with being a woman.
I'm done with menstrual cycles
I'm so over breasts
Lord knows I'm finished with hips and legs and a--
I'll shave it all off
Slice it all off
Cut it all down
And juice me up so you'll never know
What I once was.
"Oh, stop being so dramatic, you will not!
Just change your pants, darling, that's all.
You don't want to be a target.
The City is different than our little town.
You look like a target in those shorts.
Just change your pants."
Just change.
Just change, she asks me,
As though my appearance was not a form of self-expression,
As though my heart was not sewn into the fabric of these jeans,
As though my smile wasn't drawn on by self-appreciation
Just change.
No, change the world around me and my big hips, please.
Make this world see that this piece of a-- will kick yours
Make them know that I have something they can't touch
Tell me to change?
What is your motivation?
Let me tell you what you say to me with that utterance:
For all the hurdles I clear, all the moons I shoot for,
All the landmarks I pass, all the cures I find,
All the advancements I make, all the stories I write,
All the pain I heal, all the minds I mold, all the people I love,
I am judged by the length of my inseam
And valued for the shape of my skin
And all that stretches beneath its pale wonder.
I am valued for the faces I can make and all the sounds I can utter,
All the pelvises I can shake with my hips that don't lie,
The magic I can make with my tongue and its counterparts,
The seduction in the way I walk
And the childish courage with which I walk down Third Avenue
In my short shorts and long legs and wide red mouth open and laughing at the world.
You're a target.
I might as well wear a bullseye on my back
And leave my fur untrimmed
Because all I am is an animal at the core
And every day is hunting season.
Beware, because no one cares if you can save a nation or inspire a classroom or bring a crowd to their feet
No one cares if you regrow the forest or fight for the chimps or bring peace to areas of strife
Or repair those so broken they feel as though they will never walk again with their heads held high and mouths wide open, laughing.
I am the meat they want.
"Loosen up my buttons, babe"
"Take me on the floor"
"Because I feel so untouched and I want you so much"
"I'm not the kinda girl you take home"
"Smack that, give me some more"
"Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"
Hot like a fire that incinerates your ideas of womanhood
Hot like hell that destroys your fear of equality
Hot like the devil that instills fear in your heart to hurt a woman like me
Hot like an uncomfortable sweat every time you think of what you did
Hot like hives on your genitals when you want to rape
Hot like this day on which I wear long pants
Hot so you can't touch me
Hot to the bone
Hot like the sandwich I will never make for you
Hot like a supernova, already gone when you see my
Brilliance.