Good Luck, Babe

You ask us

To exist in binaries

Male/Female

White/Black

Logic/Emotions

You tell us

These binaries are real

Valid

Scientific, even

And the implication is

One

Is always

Better

Than the other

We don't believe in binaries

Science

Doesn't believe in binaries

But if you insist

We'll tell you

Your binaries are backwards

Your hierarchy is upside down

You see,

You,

On the top,

Are the most twisted of all

And us, on the bottom

Hate you

We hate you

We don't laud you

We don't worship you

And we in no way wish to be you

We fantasize about your death

Your downfall

Your inevitable crash and burn

Because you won't listen to us

When we tell you

That your way of being is unsustainable

You are so arrogant

That we have no choice

But to let you

Find out for yourself

Alongside all the men before you

That your methods are untenable

No matter how cruel

No matter how many lives are lost

And lineages traumatized

You never win

You

Never

Win

So,

We'll let you make believe again

Reconstruct the binaries we've already deconstructed

Cling to your hierarchies that we don't buy into

You have built a house of mirrors

And we aren't interested

Some of us

Have learned our history

And know exactly what you're doing

And while we put our energy into creating the realities we want to live in

We have no choice

But to watch history repeat itself

A life of violence

Only knows a life of violence

You can't have peace

If it is so foreign to you

That you can't tolerate the quiet

The stillness

The space 

For new ideas

And ways of being

And so,

As I create my forcefield of peace around me

I let go

And I let go

And I let go

Every time the old way pulls at me

And makes me question my reality

My inner knowing

My values and priorities

I know you have a greater hold on others

And I may not be able to free them

But trust

They'll find their way

Because to live a life of conformity

Is suffocating

And that's the choice

That's the price we pay

Conformity

Is not better

Than railing against the system

And at least in railing against the system

I am connected to my humanity

The same can't be said of you

A Woman's Worth

We are born

And immediately taught that we exist for others

I felt anger

I felt injustice

And was told I was the problem

Over and over and over again

My brain

Constantly calculating

Constantly assessing all sides of a situation

Constantly questioning

"Am I the problem?"

I felt like the problem

I kept feeling like the problem

Why was I the only one

Who could ever see what was wrong

And say it out loud?

And why

Did that make me a problem?

My questions have been answered

My experience

As a woman

Comforts my inner child

Who felt neglected and abandoned

Validates my inner teenager

Who was angry and resentful

And heals my inner young adult

Who felt lost and lifeless

I carry the pain, the loneliness, the ache

The anger, the resentment, the loss

I carry it all

In my heart, in my skin, in my organs

In my nervous system

Every part of my psyche

Is connected to every part of the rest of my body

And as I heal

Each and every wound

That threatened to kill me

My body starts to believe something different

The loss becomes interlaced with being found

The complexity of emotions and experience

Start to swirl around each other

Everything hurts

And everything feels magnificent

All at the same time

I realize

There's power in my Autonomy

In my Self

There is power

In my kindness and in my anger

In my love and in my resentment

In my knowledge and in my intuition

There is power

In knowing my own Self

In choosing the Self I want to align with

In choosing the environments

I believe are worthy of me

And that I am worthy of

There is power in claiming what I never had

Never knew

Never experienced

There is power in who I am

In the way I make people uncomfortable

With my words and intelligence

With my anger

Yes, I do have a right to be angry

No, I don't care

If you wish to stereotype me

Because you are afraid of my intelligence

My discernment

The way I can judge your character

You should be afraid of me

Because I can cut you up into pieces if I want to

No, I'm not afraid 

Of being alone

Because I lived my entire life alone

Surrounded by people

I am more loved, more cared for, more seen and more appreciated

As my own person

Than I ever was

Trying to appease those I would never be able to 

Because I was never the type of woman

They wanted me to be

That would make them comfortable

I reject all tropes of "womanhood" placed upon me

Because I see the oppressive contradictions that exist to suffocate me

And I will not play that game

Women are rediscovering

Their Divinity

You should be scared

Because We Are Angry

The Male Contradiction

I am

An angry woman

And yet my home is peaceful

My interactions are kind

My relationships are loving

My mind is focused and clear

I am an angry woman

Only when pushed

Only when disrespected

Over and over and over again

I am angry

After a lifetime of being undermined and underestimated

How long does it take for a man to become angry?

The moment he doesn't get his way?

The moment he isn't regarded as the best or smartest in the room?

The moment

He doesn't get his expected spotlight and applause?

A man's anger

Despite it being the greatest source of destruction on our planet

Is somehow

Normalized

And rationalized

Oh the way men love to rationalize their violence

Men cling to patriarchy the way white people cling to white supremacy

Even the "good" ones can't give up their precious seat

At the head of the table

Equality feels like oppression

When you're accustomed to privilege

The irony of it all

Is that the most privileged perpetuate their own unhappiness

Dear men,

Dear white people,

Dear white men,

We all suffer under white supremacist patriarchy

You are no happier at the top

Than you are when you are called out for the harm you perpetuate

To step aside

To 

Make

Space

For literally anyone else

Dear men,

Dear white people,

Dear white men,

You would be so much happier

If you could be kind, and empathetic, and loving, and caring

You don't know

The fulfillment of reciprocity

Of intimacy

You don't know

That when you care for others

They'll care for you

Not because you force them to

Not because you manipulate or coerce

Or beat them into submission

But because they care about you

Because caring

Begets caring

You wouldn't believe

How simple it is

How possible it is

To live a life imbued with love

Instead of power

The world the rest of us envision

Includes a version of you

That is kinder and more loving and caring

A version of you

That seeks out joy

Instead of pain

You don't know

That when we fight for ourselves

We're fighting for you too

You're the only ones

Who think you are alone

Because you make yourselves alone

It's lonely at the top

We don't envy you

We are worried about you

Because your violence and manipulation and control

Are symptoms of a much deeper

Scarier problem

You have internalized our violent, twisted system

To worry for ourselves

Is to worry for you

You are sinking this ship

Willfully

You are forcing the rest of us

To exclude you

Because you are unwilling to listen or adapt

You are missing out

And you know it

So you want to make us suffer

We all see the terrors of this world

We've already been suffering

We have been glazed under the fire

We have courage

Because we know what life is like without it

We aren't better or stronger or more insightful than you

We have simply experienced more

And your inability to learn from us

Puts you at a disadvantage

What the colonizer doesn't write in history books

Is that there has never been a time of oppression

Without its continuous resistance

They love to depict their "conquered" as inherently weak and submissive

Inherently less than

But at no point in time

Has the oppressed ever accepted their oppression

The "progress" we have made

Is the progress of resistance against repeated oppression

It makes us smarter and cleverer and wiser

We learn from experience

You will never fully conquer this world

We will never go quietly and peacefully

And it begs the question

Why are you so dead set on domination?

Why is that so important to you?

Why do you need a constant struggle?

Why do you need to hoard your treasure

When there is plenty for everyone?

You could be so much happier

If you learned how to share

Dear Men, Do Better

My anger bubbles through me

I want to scream

I want to slap every man

That has ever tried to make me feel less than

Oh women do it too

And I've also wanted to slap them

But men

Men...

Men expect it

Men expect your lowliness and submission

Your self-denial

Your self-betrayal

Men don't like an "unruly woman"

How dare she

Challenge what he says

Be smarter than him

Funnier than him

Kinder and better liked

How dare she

Reap the benefits of her own kindness and care

And not allow herself to be a doormat for others

How 

Dare

She

Removing men from your life makes the contrast starker

The image clearer

It becomes obvious

Because of how free and kind and loving your life becomes

When men enter

It's like bringing a cold wind into a warm, sunny room

And dimming the light

Causing you to close doors and shutter windows

Because suddenly you feel unsafe

When you didn’t before 

Emotionally, mentally, psychologically, spiritually

Physically, sexually

Men's entitlement over others

Suffocates and burdens

While they make excuses for themselves and don't care to think of reciprocity

Don't care to think

Don't care to feel

Don't care to empathize

Because they couldn't possibly put themselves in other people's shoes

They could never imagine being someone else

Because they automatically see themselves as better and smarter

They don't think,

"Thank god I was born a man"

They assume...

Maybe that's their biggest flaw

That they assume

That they just see things clearer 

That they just are

Smarter, better, faster, stronger

Funnier

Just like a narcissist

Who can't possibly grasp

That their actions have consequences

That the way people protect themselves against them

Is directly related to how they are treated

Men can't see

The realities they create around them

Because they can't admit to their own subjectivity

Their own bias

Their own distortions

They must believe

That their experience is the "objective" experience

And everyone else is "hysterical" in comparison

Dear men,

You're lonely

Because you're assholes

Try being better humans

What Is Sacred

I'm not giving myself away anymore

From now on

People will have to earn me

My time

My attention

My energy

My wisdom

I won't be hollowed out

And left for scraps

I never understood this world

The way people take everything they can for themselves

And can't see

That when they harm others

They also harm themselves

I never saw much use in an ego

All I saw were walls

And denial

But everyone else's walls

Showed me how much I need my own

Because people will take

They'll take

Until you have nothing left

Until you make it stop

That's not how it's supposed to be

We're supposed to be able to love

Fully and freely

But in this world

Love has a cost

It's not safe

You'll be walked over and trampled on

This world doesn't know love

The things we call love

Are distortions

The closest we can get to it

Without ever really grasping it

So the best we can do

Is learn to love ourselves

The way we would love others

If they were safe for us 

But when I love myself

I suddenly find myself surrounded by the purest love there is:

Animals and children

And I realize what it means

To get what you give

When your love is pure

That love is returned to you

Animals and children exist through instinct and intuition

They feel you

When others can only attempt to conceptualize you

And will inevitably conceptualize you wrong

To exist

Is to be judged

And misunderstood

And to experience distorted love

That never feels quite right

Until you finally realize

There was never a moment in time

That you didn't deserve to be loved

And that's when you begin to recognize it

In small, sweet moments

In your cat coming to comfort you

In your child cuddling up next to you

In the small gifts the universe brings you

We deserve love

And we deserve companionship

But it won't always come in the form we expect

My broken heart

Needs kindness

And comfort

A kind of love that feels you

Without you having to speak

And in an instant you'll realize

That in a world devoid of love

You've managed to create it around you

How precious that is

How sacred

And you realize

How much it needs to be protected

I won't give myself away anymore

I won't share

What won't be appreciated or taken care of

My love is precious and sacred

I am precious and sacred

I won't give myself away anymore

Broken

As you heal

You pick up on all the ways

That others are unhealed

I wish I could say

It's made me more compassionate

I mean

It has

I am more compassionate

And yet

I care less

I feel for every soul

Who's ever felt pain

But I know

That's each and every one of us

And I can't hold everyone

People are looking for answers and solutions

And there are none

Aside from simply loving each other

Which proves to be too hard

When it comes down to it

People say they love

But I'm certain

That no one really knows what it means

Does it mean

To put others before yourself?

Or is that a recipe for destruction?

If it's not that

What is love?

I'm convinced

It's some form of collaboration

Most people struggle to participate in

I don't trust

The ones who bare their soul

Nor do I trust the ones who withhold it

I only trust

Those who can be accountable

Show me you know yourself

Without burdening me

Can you do that?

Can anyone do that?

I see people

Learning to allow themselves to be bruised and broken

And some people

Seem able to hold that

But I can't anymore

I did

Until I began to break

I couldn't hold them

And they couldn't hold me

But children

Children are different

Because they'll break

But they will also pick up their pieces

Watch a child

Navigate adult trauma

No child should ever have to

But sometimes I wish

We were all more like children

Exhausted

The words

Are beginning to bubble

And fester inside of me

Words pushed down and away

For so long

Because I've always been too tired

Too tired of my own brain

To sit with it

For too long

I'm reactionary

I'll have a lot to say

To someone else

But what about all those people

Who just like to talk

To hear the sound of their own voice

They don't seem to know that feeling

Of being sick of yourself

I've been spending too much time

Around young, overconfident women

And I'm exhausted

I can't compete with their energy

Their self-assuredness

I feel myself retreating back into myself

Going back home

Where I'm safe

In my trauma

Ask me a simple question

And I'll tell you

I was a miserable child

I don't have happy memories

My parents weren't there for me

They barely provided for me

I don't like to compare trauma

I don't like to dwell

I don't like to take up too much space at all

I know

That my trauma has made me deep

And perceptive

I know now

I have a lot to offer

But I won't compete for attention

I'm too tired

There is always more to say

And always more ears to hear it

I don't need to push myself to the front

To matter