Woman

Location

You won’t like the world of control we live in,

Unless you hold it in your paternal palm.

 

Born new and pink and wrinkled and crying,

Knowing that this world wasn’t meant for me.

I walk a predetermined path,

Shoeless, over thistles and debris.

 

My being depends on his words.

My being decided by one whose prejudices spill,

Quick and ignorant like water through a dam,

Whose floodgates were never quite there.

 

Catcalls and know-it-alls line the streets

Yelling, what must be the truth

To a girl whose ears are still

So young.

 

Before words go in one ear, out the other,

They nestle in my brain and I make them a home

Because as a woman, making a home should be no problem,

Right?

 

I am watched through his microscope,

And he sees me cultivate, ensuring that I never grow enough

To prove that I was never

Created “in his image”.

 

Lies are his currency.

While we hear “equality”,

We still are met with 77 cents

 To his dollar.

 

We are expected to serve him effortlessly

On a silver platter

Even during a time when

Women couldn’t serve their own country.

 

I am told that I am an empty Russian doll;

Hollow and unfulfilled,

Only until a man can fill me

With layered stacks of offspring

 

I reach elbow deep in the sink for a new dish,

My mind running faster than I’ve ever been allowed to run

For fear that I may ruin

My new dress

 

We are told to be naturally unnatural;

Hairless

Emotionless

Silent

 

Thus we purge ourselves of what we were given:

Hair

Emotion

Words 

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