I was a *****
When they told me that I “needed” to wear a bra in the third grade
like my eight-year-old body was too ****
And they would want things that they shouldn’t
Like it was my fault for being this way

I was a *****
The kind that got sent to the office for too short skirts and too much cleavage
Already guilty because I had hips and thighs and *****
And I was guilty of making them look of being big of taking up space
My body was an ugly indecent thing

I was a *****.
Not the ******* in the bathroom kind of *****.
Although, given the chance I might have been.
I was the kind of ***** that loved them seeing my body.
The kind of ***** that was great at ******* and better at stripping.

I was a *****.
I was the kind of ***** who faked ******* with the best of them.
Because watching them when they heard me, saw me, felt me coming.
Was unbelievable.
It was empowering.

I was a *****.
I did what they asked because it made me feel like I was worthwhile.
It made me feel like I was valuable.
It made me feel like the pits in my heart had finally been filled.
It made me feel like he didn’t leave me when I was eight months old.

I was a *****.
I pawned myself out like answers to the history test.
Because he smiled.
Because he was the kind of boy that made you want to say yes, yes, YES
And I did what I wanted.

I was a ***** because I couldn't say no,
Yell no
Scream no
Whisper no
When his hands twinned around my wrists like handcuffs keeping me there in the silence

I was a *****
Because even though his hands were touching me
I was too afraid to say so
Too afraid of it all falling apart
Too afraid of being the thing that broke it

I am a *****.
Because you don’t stop being one.
Just because you learn that *** is more than a strategic move.
Because you see the scars it’s leaving.
Because you finally start to hear your broken heart.

I am a proud *****.
I refuse to be ashamed.
My “number” is a badge of honor I wear right above my *****.
Because being a ***** takes refinement

I’m taking it back one word at a time.

*****.
*****.
******.
***.
*****.
****.
****.
Daddy Issues.

I am a *****.
But now I’m the kind of ***** that backs away when it starts to hurt.
When they get rough.
When they bite too hard.
When I can’t hold back the tears anymore.

I am the kind of *****, who stopped giving.
Giving *******,
Giving it up,
Giving little pieces of myself,
Giving a **** what you think

I am a *****,
My ****** is singing rally songs and yelling protest chants
It’s wearing a sticker that says “I voted”
It running around barefoot in a sundress with nothing holding it down
And it’s backing me up in every fight

So call me a *****,
Because I’m the kind of ***** who won’t stop fighting until **** is always, always, always a crime.
The kind of ***** who will never be afraid to say no again.
I’m the kind of ***** that’s going to tear down your patriarchy one ******* brick at a time.
And I won’t stop until I am ****** and aching on the ground where it once stood.

They say “cover it up now
Make it look the same as all the other manufactured bodies,
Being pumped into this assembly line world”,
But my body is not the same as those,
It is soft and made of silk in an iron factory,
And the cold metal burns my skin.

Because I have the right to bear arms but not to bare arms,
Telling me that the guns that ****** are the only thing I am allowed to have,
And even though my body is hot hot hot, it will never be killer.

And you tell me that I am like the guns sitting in a shop waiting to be picked out, grabbed, paid for,
Except I'm worth less and and worthless and more disposable
Telling me I'm all hormones and ***** moans
Telling me that I am yours.

But I am not yours,
I am the little schoolgirls with battery acid thrown in their faces
Touched by hands that harm not help
Ripping apart their hearts and bodies.

But I am not yours,
I am not even mine,
I am in the freedom,
And that freedom is not in your guns or your yells or your stars,
That freedom is in the plant pushing out the iron girls, girls, girls,

Pushing them out into your world
The world that belongs to you because you claim it
But you're no match for the iron girls and their metal hearts
Taking everything you have and have had
And making it theirs, theirs, theirs

This wasn’t the first time that she had felt suffocated
by skinny girls and standards of beauty.
It got like this every winter,
feeling the heavy layers
weighing her body down.

She never felt comfortable in the sweater and boots,
socks and coats that she bundled up in.
She liked light clothes,
clothes that fairies would wear,
or angels.

Even in summer,
bracelets felt like shackles,
trying to pull her down to earth.
Socks and shoes and pants,
dragging her down.

Coats and hats and mittens,
tethering her in place.
If it was just her
in a sundress and bare feet,
she turned into some sort of ethereal being.

She was like dandelion fuzz floating on the wind.
But the sweaters held her together,
the way that stars and fireworks and splashes of water
should never be bound together
but let explode.

Because some things are only beautiful
if they are coming apart.
And she came apart in wisps
flowing up like smoke
and smelling like lilacs in spring.

On snowstorm nights the lilac sky hangs in the balance,
Lighter than the feather it rises up, up, up like lost party balloons

And the stardust falls like old firework sparks between pricked hair
It lands on the ******* from fall like a crystalline white blouse over ***** ******* in frosty air

Cold-shivers are *******
And toes curl under sheets of ice

Footprints mar fresh womanhood
And shouts turn to ice as they leave blue lips

In spring they melt female to make way for testosterone sun
That burns snow skin like cattle brands— hot

They yell on fire-breath like acrobats in Arabian orange
Scorching feminine and leaving maleness in their wake

They’ll make you feel like the bottom of a shoe.
Like you’re just meant to be walked on until you wear through.
But the only thing you have in common with a shoe is that you know what the ground feels like because their weight pushes you toward it every day.
And they may tell you that you’re all hormones and ***** moans.
But that’s just not true.

First, it was the stars on my ceiling
Glow-in-the-dark stars
That I stuck up there with double-sided, sticky foam
I stared at them every night,
Thinking These are the real deal
I traced them with my index finger,
Squinching up one eye so that I could play
Connect-the-Dots: Cosmic Edition

Then it was the stars on my walls,
Boy bands and Orlando Bloom
The epitome of hot, I thought
My friends and I would trade each other
Picking and choosing our favorites
The very best were the ones where you couldn’t decide
Which side to display of
My Galaxy Love

Then there were the stars in my eyes,
The ones everyone told me about
The only stars that were ever real
I used to look for them in the mirror
Leaning forward
But maybe they just meant that my splotchy
Gold-brown irises looked like the cosmos my
Eye Color: Starry

Now I see the stars in the heavens,
White, shiny stars,
Like pin-pricked holes in the sky,
Patterns that people tell me are there
That I pretend to see
These are the real stars, I think,
But after all this time maybe there are no stars
Maybe stars are just a dream

If being gay is a disease,
Then I'm so sick
That I'm coughing up rainbow phlegm