Don’t settle

Don’t settle for demeaning conversations

For the endless drum of interruptions

men making feminism about them

who want to tell you, again,

the story of emasculation

Have no patience for:

“you can’t even talk to chicks anymore”

complaints that a small part of their freedom

has been re-examined,

that now

oppressors have to think before they voice

what

they want

to

do to you when no one is looking

Don’t settle for:

- strangers’ hands on your teenage thighs

- ‘accidental’ grinding on public transport

- bosses who come too close and invite you out for a drink

- working twice as hard with half the recognition

- never being listened to

- seeing your ideas live on in the works of others

- the worst role in every group project, the smallest room in every house,

meaningless apologies, men expelling their ego full of toxic waste

on you

and

everyone

who comes crawling

only

when they need you

anyone

who ever makes you feel

like

nothing

Don’t settle

expectations traded for club entries

late-night dinner dates or the name cock-tease

’But why don’t you come to mine, are you scared? I won't hurt you'

People making a verbal show

of concern and affection

with none of the action

others desperate for action and wingeing

the guilt-trip into unprotected sex

& “it’s because I love you”

the space you weren’t allowed to have

the friends you couldn’t talk to, the people you couldn’t see

because

otherwise

he’d get upset

Don’t settle for

never demanding an apology from the men who never get your name right

whispering baby through the night

lovers who compare you to their exes

on a weekly basis

and blame you when you get upset

and never thank you for the late nights the words the time

you wasted loving them

Don’t settle

for less than you deserve

because

this world

won’t give you anything

unless

you

take

it.