#MeToo

Dear men everywhere,

Cat call me one more time. Shout from the side street that I look damn good in this dress. Stare down my waist and curves, touch my skin with your starved glare. Tell me to show my smile. Beg me to talk back. Ask me why I’m so tense. Tell me I have no cause to fear or hide as you break my shield built in spite of you. Let me know how blessed I am to be of your aim. Cost me my sense of self; my trust. Hint that I ought to bear a top cut low or a dress worn short. Trail me from block to block, round bends and cross streets. Don’t let me feel safe. Even when you tire and yield to dusk, hold your voice in my mind. Keep on as I go back home to where I should be able to feel like me. Chart my path as I go to wash off the filth from your smile. Let each step on the cool tile floor be a cue that I’ll never be able to get away. Make me feel wrong in my own skin as my clothes fall to the floor in a heap. Know that I’ll shower, but I won’t feel clean. See that the soap may touch my skin but it won’t cleanse me. Your stare can’t be lost. The steam will climb the walls and crawl in me, lung by lung and choke my veins as they go, you look damn good in that dress.