✰ 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.