Listen Up

you hurt us, but we'll rise

We're upset because you say things like
"I support you!"
But the minute we say something remotely out of the way
in sexist oppression that happens to us from day to day, you guys run away with your tail between your legs.

We tell you calmly
we tell you between clenched teeth and bated breath
and a hope that maybe you guys will understand.
And then it's a joke, and then it's a laugh, and suddenly we aren't scared girls anymore than the dying end of a cigarette
that you guys have stomped out.

You hurt us.
You hurt us with every sexist joke you unknowingly let fall past your lips or escape onto kik.
You hurt us when you ask questions with answers, and shy away from them like they're fire
and learning about them might get you burned.

Yes we are angry and aggressive and loud and sometimes we shout.
But, we shout so people can hear us, we shout so they can understand.

You hurt us everytime we come you, scared and upset, our feelings bare on our chest
And you brush us aside, you and name us
Salty
Petty
Butthurt
Yet we rise

Even though there is fear born in us the moment we set foot on this earth
We see you
Soft and kind and tongues tripping over excuses that justify your sleep at night
and we find hollow comfort in learning that maybe not everyone is bruised knuckles and honeyed lies
Not everyone is bared teeth and hollow skin
Begging for us to come in.

Come into little white vans
Warnings blasting on every line, telling you to stay inside
We find hollow comfort in the prospect
That not every guy will turn out to be the one
The one to plaster our faces on every lampost, every sign
the words 'missing' taking away from our very lives.
Our names becoming some nationwide plan, a plan for this to never happen again.

After the light leaves our eyes
And our breath escapes us in sighs
The world loses another girl too broken to fight.

You hurt us by reminding us that while not every guy is death peering us in the eye
they are the silent bystander in the night
watching as the world is ripped from under our feet.

And I'm not saying this to be mean.
Or insulting, or cruel, or harsh, or to tear your ego apart.
I'm saying this to make you understand why we're hurt.

Why we rage
Why fire dances in our veins
As we spit out reasons to hold to our name
So another girl doesn't rise to fame
For her life lost in a desperate game

so this is a poem I wrote after I had a fight with one of my friends over feminism. Needless to say something went somewhere and idk