Female

Girls are taught to be quite

heightened voices
associated with the violence against us

to be ignored even in the most populated parties
we look for our voices to be mimicked
in our favorite idols
false gods blazoned over speakers
splashed with rose bubbles on lonely Saturday nights

No matter how many calendars we survive

we find our voices trapped in our throats
years of love professed laying dead in an alley
new love rotting in window pane flower pots
nothing rhythms 

 in this thrown away state

There is no amount of prayers 

to save a discarded woman
is it any consequence that even 

auto correct ignores the word

Woman is always the easiest word to cast aside
feminine is the most easily spat out saying
worse than any indiscretion
even by our own

Girls are associated with crazy
unable to handle truths
look at our tattoos, worn visible scars
held with more reverence 

than your basement box secrets

You don't know that girls

are able to hold more piercing pain

abused in our teens
a thousand broken hearts in our twenties
and a million days of anger in our thirties
the fear of judgement keeping us silent
our struggle cannot be color coded
though we see the gruesome rainbow 

I would dance naked in a thousand 

pagan rituals

give myself willingly to demons

if it meant that my earthly body 

was exempt from your fire welding stares

and hands that shredded the skin

of so many of the innocent

We continue to throw fists in the dark

fighting against the shadows

that threaten to keep us down

making allies with the enemy 

anything to postpone the inevitable