my name is BABY and you get out of your car and yell at my back and it hurts like rocks going right through me and i am thirteen and in a suburban neighborhood on the way home from school and i gag and run all the way home because i'm afraid you'll follow me all the way back;
my name is SWEETIE and i am fourteen in town with my friends for the first time and we get a little lost and you follow us for a full block you name my friends GIRLY and DARLING and WHY THE FUCK WON’T YOU LOOK ME IN THE EYE I'M TALKING TO YOU;
my name is JAILBAIT and it’s two in the afternoon and i feel my heartbeat in my ears because i am under a hundred and fifty pounds and i have weak lungs and weaker fists and while you amble down the steps, swinging a booze bottle in your fist, my father who is standing next to me shouts, “she’s fifteen, you idiot” and maybe i’m near my friends and family but i don’t feel safe until im back in the hotel room;
my name is YOU NEED TO STOP FROWNING, my name is NICE ASS, my name is WHY DID YOU EVEN GLANCE AT HIM YOU WERE ASKING FOR IT, my name is THIS IS A COMPLIMENT so i looked it up in a dictionary and the definition is “a polite expression of praise or admiration” i think you’ve got the definitions mixed up;
my name is PRETTY THING, my name takes kind expressions and make them into stab wounds
my name is SLUT and no girl i know has dated a man who catcalled her, my name is GOOD GIRL and it turns out that if you shout things at a stranger, they sound like daggers more than flowers, my name is WOMEN LIKE YOU NEVER KNOW THEIR PLACE and every single “nice” thing you say to a woman is something you’d never utter to another man because you know that it’s derogatory, my name is PRINCESS and A REASON TO GET PUT IN PRISON and if another man spoke to your mother or sister or girlfriend like that, you’d kill him for sure;
my name is WHORE and at the age of fourteen im carring enough pepper spray to blind a grizzly bear and i have a panic button on me at all times because my name is PREY and apparently thats all i am to grown men who saunter down the street calling me pet names that make me want to vomit all over the sidewalk;
my name is BIMBO and at school i am told i am not allowed to show my shoulders in ninety degree weather because ITS DISTRACTING TO BOYS and yet no decent boy ive met has ever told me i should be ashamed of having flesh ontop of the bones that support my body;
my name is HOTTEST LITTLE THING and whenever i hear someone yell suddenly i am thirteen again and im running from the sarcastic words that are supposed to be compliments but are instead twisted into horrible sickening words that make me hold me car keys like tiny swords in the palm of my hand;
the world would be a better place if everyone was equal in the eyes of each other;
i will not be a rabbit that the wolves of society prey upon;
when animals bare their teeth its a sign of power and authority over the others in the pack;
so remember that the next time you see me smile
