To be a loose woman

To be a loose woman is to walk through lonely alleyways, afterparties I leave behind, with my skirt more than 3 inches above my fingertips. Do I tempt you, sir? And if the answer is yes, then where lay your gaze?

To be a loose woman is to be outspoken. It is to use the voice that I have seen quelled, and to be undemure. It is to sit not like a lady, your adorned feet are wide, wide apart. And you couldn’t care less.

It is to ignore the disapproving glares and constant, effervescent betrayal. It is to cross out “him” and replace it with “her” and “them” in your biology textbook as you listen to them drone on and on and on about equality, knowing that they ask you to “tone it down”, you attention-seeking feminist. Maybe the system could never change, but god forbid if you didn’t at least try, language can be altered, even if these ingrained mindsets can’t.

It is to be angry. Angry at the world, at the parents, but at yourself. At you for agreeing to your aunt’s scoldings as you watched her rip your womanhood in half. At your father as he rails and abuses. At your mother for pulling strands of your hair into her grasp, while you yell and shriek.

To be a loose woman is to look at other women, wait, watch, observe their elegance, their dignity. As they fend off hurled threats, empty promises of better worlds and fleeting whispers of changed actions, buried in the past.

To be a loose woman is to sit in hatred, as you spill your injustices onto the page and write, write, write away your fear as they watch fascists instill fear. It reeks of death and false hope, doesn’t it?

You don’t know what lies in the future, but you are ready.