The Second Sex

Mon, 07/04/2016 - 19:39 -- 25

I gaze blankly into the sky and the

Tears are dry.

Maybe it’s just my uterus

Talking—the smooth,

Smug woman’s voice on the ad tells

Me what I need to be

Happy—more makeup, fashion, highlighted hair, a

Boyfriend. I took my pills this

Morning like a good girl should and there’s a baby

Crying as I scan the webpage and I need

Miracle Beauty Cream and I want to

Scream it’s too loud to think in here.

So when I cry just stuff

Me full of chocolate and fat-shame me

Later. Murmur sweet sympathies about that time

Of the month. What a simple creature I am, all that needs

Fixing are my hormones. My mother told me

That I’m a poison on society and

Society hammered my head to be filled

With lace bras and hot pink, to

Laugh at silly boys and clean

Up after them. Our naked body (faceless!) is

Plastered on the billboards of Vegas, our vagina for sale in

The clubs by 15. And my face flushes so they hand

Me a Tylenol and soothe me like

A child.

And no one listens except

These pages, which are dead.

This poem is about: 
Me
My community
Our world
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