women.

a woman: the by-product of a man.

the "wo" to conceal the "man" and the

"fe" to mask the "male."

an inferiority. a secondary creation.

"and so from man came woman".

Pandora, Lilith, Eve.

dependent, provocative by nature, ignorant

to matters of politics, science, substance.

a whining, better-to-be-seen-than-heard,

good-to-aid-men, nurturing creature.

and what of our rage?

for i do not feel like the gentle creature which

has been demanded of me. i feel like a fanged abomination,

bearing its teeth to the world, snarling and spitting its

outrage. ready to take a swipe at someones eyes.

i have been whittled down to an organ

my body happens to contain. "it must be that

time of the month" they say when i voice my anger.

"someones asking for it", or else "what a prude, look

how she covers up". our relevance to society has been

measured by our ability to reproduce. by default, our

ability to seduce and please men.

and i feel angry. god's above, i feel this unquenchable rage,

eating at my lungs, chewing and spitting and consuming,

until breath becomes a luxury and the only true way i can

bring air into my poor lungs is by screaming. over and over again.

so i do. but it doesn't stop. it never will. it'll keep eating

at us, and we'll scream, but it'll never stop, not really.

we'll keep screaming into the abyss, and no one will listen.

i feel this rage for my sisters, past, present, and future.

when we are whistled at from across the street, causing us

to freeze up and speed up, while their cruel laughter follows us

from behind. when we say "no, no, no" yet still they hold us down

still they touch us, against our screaming and begging, because it

turns the bastards on.

and then we're blamed, because we should have known better.

i feel this for my sisters who are treated like toys, married

off at the first sign of blood, when my sisters are

tortured and raped and killed because they had the gall to

fight for their autonomy. when my sisters are ridiculed and killed

because they were brave enough to match what's outside to

what's inside.

i hear the howls of all my women wronged.

their shrieks, screaming of injustice. the ancestral,

inherited rage, which was my mothers, and hers,

has become but an heirloom amongst us women. the anger

at a world which should have adapted, improved.

and so i shall nurture my anger, feed it stories of

women who have suffered for the sins of men. i will

fight, i will scream into the abyss with my sisters, and when

the time is right, i will pass on my angry heirloom, so that

one day, we can rest our sorry lungs and become

primary creations.