The Bus

When the nights were long and dark

I'd sit and think

About all the ways men could hurt me

Tear me down and degrade me

A silent killer of our girls

Our pride, our nation

We've been reduced to a punchline,

A slogan in the warfare of mere mortal men

A weapon of destruction,

Tamed and portrayed as the person

Behind every man's success

But never the one to achieve it herself.

My mother was 22

When a beggar asked her for sex

And my friend 12

When a man first touched her

And I, 17

When a man put his hand on my thigh and caressed it

But trust me,

There was no care in his touch

Just a sense of cacophonous gloom

And disdain looming over my thoughts

Unblossomed buds nipped

In the dark.

In the dark, these men prey upon

The ones they perceive as weak

Hidden away in the black of the night,

Emancipated and bold.

Who are we to question them?

Desire is only natural

When a woman flashes her skin

Marble-like and marvelous

A goddess unto herself

They can't help but want to lay

Their grimy hands

Or glance a lingering look

Or want to invade her.

Little do they understand

Decades and centuries of patriarchy

Has not touched us.

It never will.

For a woman's spirit is forged

In the fiercest of fires.

A reckoning to those who try,

A warning, a way of life.

You are because she was.

She is and will always be

A stalwart of humanity,

A dream come true.