100 years of being able to vote
and nothing ever changes. 
Women STILL aren't free to be present in their bodies.
Free to choose what their body is capable of
and to not be shamed for it's shape and size.
Did you ever consider looking at the density
of our hearts instead of our thighs and chests?
I'm sorry... am I being too loud?
Should I be quieter?
Am I distracting you?

Sorry my skirt is too short,
sorry my mom breastfed my baby sister in public,
sorry our baby is crying because shes hungry,
sorry I wore a crop-top to school,
sorry my clothes matter more to you than my education,
sorry its OUR fault for being cat-called,
sorry it's our fault for not listening,
sorry I was walking alone at night,
sorry I'm scared to walk anywhere now,
sorry I was talking back,
sorry I didn't chirp on command,
sorry I'm so distracting,
sorry I'm not distracting enough,

I live in a place where most of the year the ground is soft, where the edges are blurred by a multitude of greens. When I was a child, even the summers were mild and wet. But in recent years, the heat has lasted longer and burned harder. Now when I run barefoot through the park, dust coats my toes and the grass crunches under my feet. I hold my breath till the rain comes, waiting for the unrelenting cascade of grotesquely perfect days to end. The dryness is made all the more palpable by the absurd irony of longing for what in the past was dreaded: winter. I miss the cozy clouds. The endless blue of the sky feels oppressive in its openness. Every morning I look up, hoping for some sort of change, some sort of relief. I am terrified the rain will never come again. Dust is a poor substitute for mud. 
 

You are not all perfect.
There are parts of you that you don't want to explain,
there are pieces of you that contrast with everything else.

Yet
people will call you beautiful
and you will like it.

But
chaos is beautiful too
and messy is beautiful
and flames are beautiful too.

Impulse lies uneasy in your joints
but feels welcome in the heart.

Water falters at the desert
yet pours from the spout.

You do not have to burn to be shining,
you do not have to throw yourself in the flames
to become beautiful.

A deep heart is twisted around your ribs,
blood cannot paint 
so imagine your ribs to be pearly white.

If your heart became an ocean,
your lungs would freeze to become glass caskets
already prepared for a dying breath.

As if the body was a metaphor for mistakes.

My hair is tangled in fishing hooks,