society told her she was ugly and she bought into the lie
she dissected every bit of herself for judgmental inspection
and tried to feel beautiful all in vain
comparing herself to photoshopped figures on a magazine page
I saw the sadness in her eyes
as she flipped through the shit they use sexualized bodies to advertise
subliminal brainwash since birth that writes on the mind
I want her to feel beautiful in the body she was born with
feel happy in her skin
never satisfied with the body she is in
compliments never do shit so where do I begin
she points at bodies she says are perfect
not knowing that she is too
sadness blooms as she starts to slip
downward spiral spin
cuts down on meals to be thin
but I can already fucking see her ribs
its disgusting and sick the way the…
I recently had the honor of co-judging a Feminist Flash Poetry and Fiction contest (called FemFlash) for the website MookyChick. The winner of the contest was recently announced and I’m proud to cross-post the winning poem: “Male Privilege” by C. Askew. Read the other finalists here.
MALE PRIVILEGE
by C. Askew
Give me the shovel.
Give me the tattoo gun’s kiss on my skin.
Give me the hard day’s work.
Give me the graveyard shift.
Give me the white van.
Give me lager and the night.
Give me the warship and the race car.
Give me the walk home alone.
Give me the chainsaw.
Give me the streetlit alleyway.
Give me the roadmap’s cryptic veins.
Give me the fearless midnight park.
Give me the swagger.
Give me the paycheque.
Give me the wet-dream and the punch-up.
Give me James Bond and Action Man.
Give me walls to build in the baking…
Jane had pretty poetry
And hands the size of shoes
And swirling inky look-at-me tattoos
On the trophy shelves of her skin
And Jane never thought twice about you
And nor did she digress;
Don’t help me once, just hurt me
less
Yet in the eyes of everyone Jane was a trailer-worthy mess.
And some sweet girls they said things about Jane
How small and suffocating cotton would stick to her skin
How a boy with dark hair and slinky eyes
Boasted about the game and the win-
Yet no one ever seemed to whisper anything poisonous about him.
Friends, teachers, the
do-gooders and world-changers
Her righteous church-community youth leader
Would always have their little snickers of Jane
And that’s what drove her from church.
And no one ever had the nerve to ask Jane
How much did it hurt,
When she turned the corner and for her half-shared actions
Faced all…
she likes to sip mauy tais while staring at guys and watching movies waddle across the television screen. the girl likes to tell the truth but is more comfortable with lies.
she kissed one of her boyfriends in secret because of his blue eyes, her girlfriend in secret because of her second pair of lips, and man that she carnally desired behind closed doors because of the extension between his hips, while
still touching finger tips with her girlfriend. Sometimes she wished that they were all just friends. The guys and the girl… and the other guys that are not mentioned. She wishes that she could sit in an apartment alone, while her girl and those guys pendulum closely by, and she can experience large landscapes from…
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