I want to change the way boys look at me.

I want them to stop seeing my body as the tenement of their eyes.

I want to stop feeling dissected by a glance up and down--

just checking out what I have to offer. 

You can never see what I have to offer.

What I have to offer is something that sometimes I don't even see.

I want to stop my instincts. 

I wish I didn't feel the need to clutch my purse, duck my head, and walk faster

on lonely streets full of hungry eyes.

I wish that I didn't feel like somebody else's object.

I wish that for once we could just accept that nobody is an object. 

We are vibrancy, life, flesh, thought, a myriad of ineffable intangible consciousness.

I want to scream bloody murder when someone thinks that I curled my hair for anyone other than myself. 

These curls take too much time to waste on anyone but myself. 

I walk down the street, eyes straight ahead and fight the urge to become a chair.