Ugly is liberatings
If we must be perceived
Let it be without constraints
As beauty is a trap
If we don’t conform
We can speak our minds
Live free in our truth
Deference supports the power
Don’t have to defer
Ugly can be power.
Any aceptance of trans women
The joke is so cliche
The love of my life was clueless
he couldn’t save me
The priveledge of men
Blinds them to reality of women.
If the trick to catch a man
Is to be thin and young and dumb
Then Im not sure there is a man
Im going to try and seek
Im not willing to be submissive
To court or keep a guy
Pleasure and companionship
Can be found other ways
Im fat and old and smart
I like food more than sex
No one will acuse me of being fun
Im at odds with keeping a mate
I wont spend my life
In a perpetual chase
I think I can live without
Yeah, Im better off on my own.
Men are predators
They hunt everyday
Sex is their game
And I dont wanna play
Boys are taught to dominate
Early in their youth
Girls romance about rescue
Despite its ugly truth
I dont blame their nature
But I expect them to be tame
We have a choice in behavior
Respect comes with refrain
I will not blame victims
I will not excuse perpatrators
But perhaps I will shame society
For raising boys into a rapers.
It seems silly
That a woman being strong
And speaking out for women
Is seen as confrontational
And taken as an offense
They treat our power as a challenge
Like they think we want to win
As if were trying to replace them
When in reality we want respect
We want to stand beside them
Maybe its fear of the difference
Because female strength is new
We can get the same things done
But we may not take the same path
We will not defer to the old way
The thing that irks me the most
Is I’m trying to understand them
Im trying to make it easier for them
Even as they throw shade
On my burgeoning power.
I am liberated from sexy
Too old and fat and proud
To be anyones objectification
So much easier to be a feminist
When men don’t acknowlede me
And women don’t think me competition
If all you see is my imperfect exterior
and you can’t get past my gender
Then I’ve escaped your attention
My desirability no longer defines me
I choose my brain and selfesteme
And therin lies my freedom.
She licked her lower lip
Like there was something to suppose
A question not so often asked
Of chubby girls or loose women
Is it contained between chaste thighs
The sweet innocence of always?
Can knowing what we know
be a woman’s wrath at redemption?
The confusion is not within
We know we are both, not other
A sin is only a sin when defined
A lover must be loved by another.
Oh men…
The strong ones subjugate
And the weak ones prostrate
And the lack of equanimity
Leaves me at a loss
Oh women…
The powerful ones manipulate
And the quiet ones regulate
We are our own enemy
In the game of equality
Oh me oh my…
At times I’m girly and silly
Or boyish and rough
Or womanly and gentile
Or manly and strong
Oh gender role…
The world is hard enough
Without your restrictive decree
My gender may be female
But my personality is made of me
She always knew she’d get married
but was unprepared to be divorced
The end came out of nowhere
After a slow road of decline
They felt superior to other couples
Like they shared a special secret
All their faults were somehow perfect
They were a match like no other
The dream felt permanent
When she was in the middle of it
She knew he loved her like no other
There was never a doubt of her in him
Until the day when he was different
When she felt alone in his presence
And the love she knew for certain
Was shadowed by heavy doubt
No girl dreams of divorce
No woman hopes to end up alone
None of us try to imagine
What comes after forever
The surprise was after the end
She didn’t enjoy being divorced
But she liked not not existing for him
Being for herself was enough.
If only manly traits
Were sexy in a woman
I’m smart, funny, and confident
I have a job and I’m ambitious
I’d make a great husband
But, as a woman,
I’m perceived as bitchy
And pushy and weird
I’m not pretty enough
I’m not docile enough
I’m not an object of desire
The flip side?
Being unattractive
Means I’m not prey
Men don’t catcall
They don’t leer
They don’t stalk
At worst they ridicule
But I’m confident enough
That I don’t care
I’d rather be happy with me
Than try to be someone else.
There is no pine in me
I do not wait around
For the move of another
I surge forward
And fail where I may
Yearning seems futile
Why not ask the question
True answers dont falter
And I’d rather stand alone
Than not be wanted
There is little tact in me
I corageously blunder
Blurt out my intent
Let the awkward sprout
See what will bloom
Often I am rejected
This is a game of many losses
One you can’t win unless you play
So I keep failing
So I keep trying
I won’t know the answer
Without asking the question
I fear the silence
More than rejection
So in ask
Do you want me?
.
Girls are taught to yearn for a prince
A man to sweep us off our feet
To take us to their priveledged world
I overheard this priveledged man
Argue against government assistance
Argue that poverty is a personality deficit
I listened as he dismissed the poor
As his friends agreed on our lesser worth
I felt impotent in the reality of this prince
My girlish fantasies cracked
Shatter like a looking glass
Under the weight of his words
I’m of the impoverished masses
A pesant born and bred
And I refuse to be seen as lesser
My mundane troubles define me
I can’t imagine loving someone
That doesnt understand the same
And, let me not forget,
I’m a woman of feminist ideology
Who isnt looking to be rescued
Reality is a harsh mistress
It doesn’t alow us childish games
It took away my fantasy
Fuck the prince and his worldview
I don’t need shelter or rescue
…even if I idly miss the idea of it.
Boys call us crazy
Men doubt our veracity
Doctors send us to therapy
Secretly, they think we lie
Ever evolving emotions
Taken as inconcistancy
We must not know ourselves
If our feelings can change
Ladies don’t challenge the norm
Don’t question the authority
They think they know us better
Than we know ourselves
So I don’t trust them
Because I trust myself
If this is my hysteria
I define it, I defy them.
I don’t need to be saved
I refuse to serve
If I had my way
I’d stand beside
Raised by women
I know feminine power
Didn’t realize the divide
Until I dated men
I am not a concubine
Or a doting mother
But I am feminine
A confident woman
We can save each other
We can take turns as slave
Let love reflect respect
Let man be equal with woman.
Elizebeth Turnquist 