Why so many Questions?

Our very own president is a packaged flaming hot cheeto with peanut butter hair and doll hands. I was tasked with facing that in November, and each day my feminist rage grows. So I wrote a poem that tries to channel my rage into what’s more of a question.

Questions

I think that
As we grow older…
As we grow wiser and stronger
As we
Develop
Out of our clothes, our words and faces
We become less accustomed to things that were
And look for the things that are.
The things that might be

We’re constantly shopping for new clothes as if
It will cover our shame; a virtue.
We’re so afraid to be naked, so afraid to be
Vulnerable.

But I lost that right,

Did I?
In fact
I never had it,
I was never privileged enough to earn it, silly me.

Was it the
Swing in my step
Or the
Pride in my stride?

Was it the
Equality for all
As I pleaded for the fall
Of the patriarchy?

Was it my
Need and greed
For those mouths I feed
With my words of
Power, and confidence.
Or was it the fear?
Was it my nasty need
For hygiene and cleanliness
That didn’t cost an arm and a leg?

Was it my confusion on why
My feminine cry
Pleaded for a pay
That accurately displays
My honors and works as a human? Just a human being.

Was it my constant spatter?
On the corporate pitter patter
That shames my body
For wanting hers? Wholly.

Was it my queries on bathrooms
Or was it my anti-ableism attitude?  

What was it?

Would my skin be nicer
Had my mother not been
Exposed to the lies
And the hopes that
She would be free?
Would my demeanor be
Tolerable
Had my ancestors not been
So vulnerable
On the shores of the one
Country continent?

Would my sexuality be easier
for you to digest in your sea
of expectations if it fit into
your heteronormative box?

The box that I now
have to find my bedroom in?

It’s like pandora’s, except the only thing that escapes
is your
freedom? it’s all I’ve asked for.
Mine doesn’t, though. 
except it never does, 
because that’s not how this story goes.

Why, can’t I just accept it?
Would my hair be nicer if I just brushed it?
Would my shape be pretty if I
Just Lost
it
Like
I lost
My mind.
Why am I expected to be white
when I am not?
“Am I too loud?” I ask
Was that too quiet?
Constantly asking

Questions.

So why am I still in a cage of questions?

Why am I so confused…

I asked myself one more time, as if asking questions made things easier. Poetry isn’t just an art, but necessary in a world of lies.

But the real problem is the fact that they never taught us how to solve these questions. They never taught us freedom.

 

Featured Image Source: The Blue Diamond Gallery