What harm can we do you on our knees?

Every month we double over in pain for we,

You call it disgusting, unnatural

You shave us clean

Strip us to the bone until we have none

Skin to skin to hair and teeth and breath too hot to breathe

You thrust and sweat and hiccup until “no” is no more than She

Cold and small - left for we

Cheapened by a blood-run expectancy

And you say to yourself “I am alone”

The female voice is burden to you

With all its heavy-hearted sorrow and starving need that clings to the cheeks in

the mouths of we so even a whisper cannot seep

And you blame us for your problems; throw us into boxes labeled “fat, skinny, sexy, ugly, slutty, bitchy”

Ship us across the seas, too far apart to see

That we’ve stayed quiet; for we

are

Belittled, objectified, over-sexualized;

Force-fed the words “my fault, our fault” unable to swallow their falsity

We are temptresses, whores, holes

With the tears that burn skin that is our only protection against the night that breeds

We are but one thing in his eyes…

But please,

What harm can We do you on our knees?

Scuffed, scratched, scared from the burden of everything that we cannot see

Always looking up and unable to look forward

Too shamed to say “we need”

Bearing all of we on each of our shoulders

Kneading a language through eyes instead of “I”'s

And you don’t understand the word no

We kick, we push, we plea

And you do your thrusting and leave; us

Blamed for your problems

We who cannot bow our chained necks

forward

Your conscience has turned its back on you

Bent and unable

 to hold on to any light seen through unyielding eyes; glaring

you are alone; you

Too frightened to feed off of anything bigger then then your own ignorance

A failing attempt to reach

You, us, we

When I have a daughter of my own,

I will nurse her to life with words of we

who have the strength to survive even though all we’ve been fed is lies

so we stay small enough to be placed in palms

 ungracious

I will tell her that, when she is older

And if you approach her

With twitchy hands and sweat on your lip

To look at you in those eyes too weak to speak; and speak

“There is no I, only we”

So then she will not need to kick and plea

Because you will crumble to your knees