✰ betrayed by history ✰

my hair used to be my most prized possession

(so i cut it shoulder-length and dyed it black)

as were my dignity and worth, but right now 

it’s all lost, and nothing seems to really matter.

i hear the hissing (only inside my head),

“there is nothing you could do”, 

but what if there was? 

once upon a time, 

a woman condemns another

(out of revenge) so i ask myself

what is feminism? what is compassion?

what is anything?

boys might be boys but in the 21st century 

girls still grow snakes on their heads, and

their stares will, hopefully, turn you into stone

(just so that you won’t touch them)

and when i say that, i only mean that

one in every five of us will be assaulted 

it just happened to have been me

nobody has every asked to be raped,

which athena did not quite understand, 

(and neither did my mother,) but

by definition of the word, it cannot be wanted. 

you see, being medusa is knowing that 

the feeling of dirtiness does not go away.

(no matter how many showers you take,)

their hands will still be marked on your body

like tattoos you didn't ask to get but

someone thought it'd look good on you.

being medusa is understanding that 

your body will be an abandoned house,

(or an ancient temple,)

that is both so empty yet so dirty as though

people had quite forgotten to visit 

or clean around once or twice a month

it is telling yourself that 

nothing is really lost because you are alive,

(even if you don’t want to be,)

and that telling your story is most important

so that other girls might believe that even though they died,

phoenixes aren’t the only ones to rise from their own ashes.