The Patriarchy Under My Bed

Our world is far from perfect.

It is not a sunny place.

It is not a paradise,

it is a sour slap in the face.

It is a scale tipped too far to one side.

It is a fight for who is allowed to have pride.

It is a demon cackling with his mouth open wide.

Perhaps that is why I forgot how to cry,

and now my tears are replaced with a sigh.

A thought, a prayer, and a question as to why

in a place so full of issues we insist on a divide,

of the women and the men.

I am asking you when will this struggle end?

And I find myself fighting this beast,

fancying himself my plight he will feast.

I think not, bastard demon

for I will fight for my freedom.

I lunge at its mouth

as it spreads north and south,

cursing, swearing, tearing at the corners of it’s smile

as it laughs and breathes its foul breath all the while.

“Well, I’m afraid you can’t do that, it’s just not lady like my child.”

I scratch and writhe and stretch upon the earth as I go wild

As I yearn and burn and spin and clutch at something that

I just need to touch, to feel while

I reel and long so much.

And feel that it is also mine

and not something that

I shall soon find to be something that shan’t belong to me,

the world as it is and will always be.

A place that I am told is free

but has cost so much more you see.

For I have paid in blood and tears

and even after all these years,

it’s a question of who is superior.

“It’s not yours, it can never be yours,

you’re inferior!”

But like so, it seems to form inside

That one day we’ll be side by side.

Not as groom and not as bride

but equals in a world not mine,

not yours,

but ours.