Hi,I’m a

Hi,

I’m a girl and every day I bleed

My skin is a summer field and little nicks of flesh are just flower petals parting

We were told the hair that grows from our skin

The hair that’s meant to be there is disgusting, is repulsive.

We didn’t know it was wrong until they mocked us for it

Razors replaced lollipops and baby dolls, they told us to “get rid of it”

“No one will ever love you with it”

I wish you were more disgusted by the objectification of our young bodies than the hair that grows from it

Their barking echoes through our skulls like jarring roars against steel walls

Cruel jokes and bitter slurs

The same men to call us beautiful when they first say hello

Are the same to call us “ugly anyway” when we say “No”

I’m a girl and you want that but you don’t want me.

See you keep a checklist of everything that I must be

You put a giant check beside hourglass figure

But don’t realize that the skin I’m in feels more like a ticking time bomb

But don’t realize that the tip of your pen feels more like the edge of a blade

I’m a girl and every day I bleed.

More men named John own big companies than all women

But if we wanted the position we should have just gone out and done it.

But the bridge built for us seems to get narrower and narrower and narrower

Until we’re tight-walking our way to success on the edge of a blade

The caverns beneath us filled with cold eyes gawking up our skirts

And voices of metal, chanting and whistling as we stagger our ways forward.        

65% of women have reported being street harassed

But of course it’s a compliment

Of course I should just smile and say thank you

After all I should be grateful, it means that I’m beautiful

But since when did being beautiful feel like being choked?

Since when did staring down a dark street feel like glaring into the barrel of a gun?

You’ll line us up like statues and reduce us to our bodies

You’ll score us 1-10 as if we’re taking the test we never studied for

We couldn’t prepare for

Hi, I’m ugly

So let me try and appeal to you

Let me try and squeeze through the hourglass-shaped

Gap in the iron wall you carved for us

Hi, I’m a mannequin

And now you like me because mannequins don’t speak

They just look pretty

My skin is plastic and it is bald

My waist is finally clenched in tight enough

Because I don’t need to breathe anymore

Hi, I am a ball-jointed doll

Now I can move must just barely.

The more I try to bend, the more I break, the more I start to see

I’m fragile like you want, this is how you built me.

Hi, I am pull-string toy

Finally I can speak but only when you want me to.

You programmed politeness into me

Programmed passiveness into me

Taught me to keep my mouth shut if I hear something cruel

Standby and watch men turn women into prizes, hang their bodies by their bedside like trophies

Hi, I’m a girl

That does not mean my worth is measured by fabric lengths or waist-size

Stomachs flat like dinner plates and perfect thighs. Hip span, or bright eyes

Misogyny has a hold around my throat,

Fingers of bark and nails like splinters soaked in scarlet.

And a measuring tape to tie me down, la  beled ‘prude’ to ‘whore’

And no I won’t put up with it, not any more.