If you keep doing what you’ve always done
you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got
and you’ve always done
what makes someone else happy.
Stayed over when you felt you should have left,
wanted to say no but instead you said
‘maybe’ or ‘I don’t know yet’
till pressure turned it into a yes
or it was just conceived as one
when often silence is a siren song,
willing someone to listen
and notice something’s wrong
because there’s a voice here that lacks confidence
in saying what they need
and passive participation
just because the other person said please
doesn’t mean it’s the best decision for you,
and if you hesitate or have to convince yourself to act
then that’s your body saying
you don’t really want to do that,
it’s just hard to know how else the situation will pass
and one makes you uncomfortable for longer.
You don’t need to be stronger
because you aren’t weak
it’s just that you’ve learned through past experience
that it doesn’t matter if you scream out,
your consent is something people have forgotten about
and then your energy was spent on figuring out
how to get help
when it’s clear that no one hears you.
How do you turn up the volume
to a world that presumes
we all speak the same body language
and show fear in the same way?
Most women’s battle cries are first seen in their eyes
because it’s perceived as an easier option than refusal
to instead freeze or play friendly,
because appeasement is indoctrinated
from an early age
where we are taught that men are violent
and it’s not safe as an adult
to leave our house at night
without company,
keys between our finger tips,
not to style our hair in a manner
that someone could grip
because a man’s arousal is our responsibility
and when it’s seen as our fault then the consensus
expects us to do something about
that erection in his pants now,
and it doesn’t matter about reciprocation
or the years our ancestors fought
for our sexual liberation
because we’re a nation of porn users
waiting on Stormzy’s Vossi Bop, cum-shot, money-pot facial
that actress was obviously gagging for
just after the point that the man behind the camera
called her a whore, whilst another man
sticks his dick in her mouth
and holds her head down,
leaving the next generation in no doubt
that a quick internet search
will show the worth of a woman’s body
in the 21st century,
bent over a casting sofa
as three men penetrate her
and piss on her chest.
Society at its best, no holes left to fuck,
a president that brags of grabbing us by the pussy
and still his fucking time isn’t up.
Two girls one cup
because we’re forced to share the shit
that most men don’t want to be burdened with
because feminism doesn’t equate to being masculine
it just means you’re a pussy
to be in the minority
that stand in solidarity
with a woman’s authority over her own cunt.
On the cusp of a sexual revolution
but some still want the opportunity for a witch hunt,
like how 200 million women and girls have been cut,
it’s the new version of burning alive
because if the world gave women permission to have pleasure
it could satiate her life
in ways men don’t know how to satisfy.
So continue to feed her lies
about her lesser place in society
because really you’re worried
she’d be a threat to male survival as we know it.
Death of dependency in exchange for respect
where sex happens when we’re ready
and we’re free to lay down boundaries
and leave when it feels uneasy
because there’s no assumption
that by a certain number date
or in exchange for his undivided time
we’ll end up in his bed for the night,
sacrificing our needs to pacify a man’s pride
because we’re told that caring is in our genes.
The overarching theme that feeds
the means by which we put aside our desires,
burn out our fires
because having a libido just makes us sluts
and sex ends when the man cums
and we’ve always done
what makes someone else happy.
