Creative | Posted by Eden Halo on 04/26/2013
Midas and Medusa
Our suffering was human long before you
Tried to “humanise” it,
Give us the kiss of life,
I am not your wife, I am not your sister
I am not your fucking daughter, sorry to break
All this water
On the embers of you
Deigning, for once, to give a damn
What your friends do to us
By imagining we belong
To you — I will demonstrate
How little you know of possession
As I run
My keys along your car
Til your mouth unlocks, drops open
And I dive down your throat, walk around
In you, the cage
Of your ribs more spacious than
My own, two sizes too small,
Zero, counting down to take-off, space
For my heart all taken
With the frenzied tango
Of me watching you …
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Creative | Posted by Fran H on 01/18/2013
Feminism Is Not A Word We Use In Polite Society
They wanted to be blondes, all of them, at some point in their lives.
Natural honey or not, they believed when
Marilyn cooed, old, white male screenwriters her puppeteers,
“Gentlemen prefer blondes”
the line delivered with a seductive smile,
as Norma Jean Baker, a smart brunette who loved James Joyce,
drowned in her persona, hiding her soul with peroxide and carefully exposed necklines.
They hide themselves too, trying to be socially acceptable, swallowing their opinions along with the latest
dieting tea.
“Look like Barbie!” it promises on the box,
but Housewife Barbie, Mother Barbie, Teacher Barbie, Nurse Barbie,
traditional, safe occupations, nothing like Barbie’s
dangerous incarnations, President Barbie, Astronaut Barbie, CEO Barbie, Scientist Barbie, pushed to the sidelines, hidden under the bed, coated in dust. Nobody ever played with them …
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Creative | Posted by Tiffany C on 11/2/2012
Innocence and Experience
She was all sharp angles even in earlier innocence,
Sticks and stones,
Upright stance, finely wrought
Collarbone jut, delicate vertebrae
stuck out; a recollection of one night
Sternum solid plate of bone; no one will be able to break this part of you
that she instinctively felt in reassurance
Fragile as a bird,
False pretenses in adolescence,
Awkward
Inebriated lightweight who never knew the bitter taste of rejection
and instead, learned of too hasty acceptance—
Arched shoulders, hipbones widened from experience,
Her wrists smudged with bruises blooming like dandelions in grass;
abundant and careless
Her eyes, once starlight-bright, became
Precise in every action
Tousled morning-after hair
She was all sharp angles even until world remained empty,
because that night, casual, she went out with her friends to a club
Was …
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Creative | Posted by Molly B on 10/19/2012
Girl
You don’t get to say
That because I was born with these parts
And not those
That I have to wear eyeliner
Or make someone breakfast
Or suck a dick
You don’t get to say
That I’m not a nice young lady
Because I cuss and smoke
And I don’t fit into the box you built for me
It’s not my job to clean the house
Because of the vagina between my legs
And I don’t need your permission
For anything
I can work harder
And run faster
And out fight most of the men I know
There is nothing wrong with me
Just because I come from a land you’ve never been to
And speak a language you can’t learn
Don’t berate me
Just because I’m out of your …
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Creative | Posted by Quin R on 01/13/2012
You See A Body
You see a body; not a person,
Mind you, that’s above your comprehension
But a body-strike that-an object, a plaything
A dish to be sampled to satisfy some sick craving
Never mind that you don’t even know her name,
Much less her personality, her interests, but it’s just a game
To you isn’t it? It’s not as if she really has time to give
A damn, what with everything heaped upon her just to live!
Between the driving, and the career, the shopping, the cooking,
The raising the children, the endless workouts, the starving herself to keep looking
Just as skinny as you could damn well please, thank you very much! The night class,
The no-sleep, the three-minimum-wage-jobs-just-to-make-rent, but she’s just a piece of ass
To you, isn’t she? She …
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Creative | Posted by Emaan M on 09/23/2011
Shame
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 …
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Creative | Posted by Tesneem A on 06/17/2011
Sick
I’m sick and tired of you,
And I’m sick of the things you do,
I’m sick of the things you say,
And how you insist you have your own way,
For how can I forgive someone who can’t respect me and the choices I make,
A person who turns every rule I make into a rule to break?
My body is my temple and what happens to it is for me to decide,
And no, it is not just a matter of pride!
Shower me with all the sweet words you can say,
But I am not one you can easily sway,
You can try to make me cry out of guilt and sadness,
But it is all emotional blackmail I will not process.
Call me unlovable and stupid,
But …
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Creative | Posted by Tesneem A on 05/27/2011
No Body Is Perfect
Colour me flawless, colour me pretty,
Isn’t it enough that I’m smart, caring and witty?
I have my scars and I have my scratches,
I even have my fair share of bulges,
I wish that the skeletons would stay in their closets,
And that those cans of worms would remain closed,
But I can’t deny that I’ve had my woes,
For perfection for me is a far away dream,
Unattainable and ever elusively seen,
I know that life goes on, but I still despair,
No matter how much it looks like I don’t care,
But I wish it wasn’t so hard for me to let go,
It’s time to be resilient and live again, to be emancipated and elated,
Because if it’s true that the sky is the limit and …
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