i hate existing constantly trying to be something more like
her face, her smile maybe if i had her nose or her eyes her cheekbones or legs, i wouldn’t be stuck staring into my phones front facing camera lens, perpetually, trying so hard to squint into the mirror on my screen until my skin is putty that i can caress into photo-shop perfection
I do not think it human nature to always be striving for some sort of upgrade, i think it gluttonous, a residue of the greed pouring out the windows on wall street
But i am not their product to sell
So allow me then, to want peace, instead of a war against the self
to sleep naked because it is comfortable and not because of the man watching from inside of me
to lay with the flowers, be a flower, in a native way not in the female innocence you get to destroy kind of way
They say god was a man, which at first seemed so bizarre until it wasn’t, until it became the only palpable conclusion
because maybe that’s why men find it appropriate to never stop watching
judging, pinpointing what i need to be the perfect 10 out of
every girl in this room is worth more than him
because what did that guy ever even do besides die on a cross?
Every woman i know has done exceedingly more,
Has laid to rest her stars and vowed to one day return when she is strong enough to put them back in the sky only to leave pieces of herself buried across oceans, lost to time, in favor of survival
i have watched a woman’s spirit die in every room i have been in, stared in awe as she forcibly pressed her bones against one another, suffocating her soul, hoping to become small enough
to fit under his shoe in his little shoe home that has only an entrance.
i often wonder who we would all be if we weren’t forced underneath him every single night
if we were made love to with music and human kindness instead of control
maybe women wouldn’t be women at all
maybe then I would have never learned to check every angle of my body in every article of clothing before walking out of my front door.
Forgive me god, for i have sinned,
because i am deeply envious of butterflies and their ignorance and their wings.
Because when i see the sky i am filled to the brim with a deep visceral desire only parallel to lust that bids me to fly away,
because the wrath from inside of me will never quell, never stop wanting revenge for the bodies he has taken,
because I am too proud to admit that writing about my pain does not do enough for my sisters in Afghanistan, in Mexico and Brazil, the women in Iran, Thailand and India who do not have even half the voice that I sometimes take for granted.
Maya Angelou once called me a phenomenal woman, and for that i am forever in her debt,
because courage is scarce when everything i say will always be too much for him and not enough for her,
not because she is ungrateful, but because she is deserving of so much more than I will ever be able to give.
How very telling of me, to wish for wings instead of arms strong enough to pull her out from underneath him.
How very telling of them, to have made their god a man who wields power and controls the tides
While speaking of nature as their mother;
as housing and caring for them with deep love and empathy, like god is supposed to might i add
Speaking of earth as a woman, when all they have done is destroyed her.
