I have to admit. This isn’t in the holiday spirit. Unless you count gifting myself and other women I know, a reawakening of strength and self-worth, that has been laying dormant for too long. So yes. Consider this a gift, not just to me, but to any woman who has ever felt this dynamic, this pressure, unasked for.

How We Dare

What is it from the mouths of men
the decadent lies
the wasted words they think will woo?

And how quickly they turn to anger
when those wilting platitudes 
fall like daisies thrown at
our fortress’ metal walls.

I am too heavily armed to submit
to the weak volley 
of your empty affection.

How dare you not love me
as I love you?

How dare you reject
my half-hearted attempts?

you should rejoice
that my loins find you ripe
that I shower you with compliments
shallow and unasked for!

How dare you not return
the blessings of my favor
the short-lived and asinine desire?

how dare you not lie down
and accept this righteous gift?

To which I give response…

How dare you.

How dare you come to me expecting?

How dare you shower me with words
and fantasies unasked for?

How dare you assume
my heart is anything like yours?

But most of all 

How dare you bellow your unwavering love 
while not listening to the words I speak?

Claim to love the magnificence of me
until I open my mouth to tell you no.

As though your fantasy talked back
but she didn’t say the words you wanted
so you overlooked her autonomy.
and continued on, unhinged

How dare you stake claim on a land
you do not own?

On a human you hold no rights to?

What is it from the mouths of men
that make them prophets of conceited expectation?

I am no man’s to own
I am no one’s to desire.

Turn your beaded and greedy eyes
on some other prey

I am not magnificent for you.

I am magnificent for myself alone.