Woman of Many Parts

Sexuality was a slow, quiet discovery for me. 

I never knew my body could hold power, when I only hated and hid it

When I became aware of it I had already long been an object of desire.

Not in the sweet way that I'd always hoped someone would look at me,

but in that way every girl who is not quite a woman knows: something to be taken.

And you must know that everything I did was to feel as though I had power.

Like I could steal myself back because I knew why boys would stare or girls would whisper. 

I was full of rage, rage at the sticky blood on the inside of my thighs, the cat-callers, 

this fate that made me vulnerable when I was already quick to cry and easy to break.

So I wore fishnets, and short skirts. I tried high heels and crop tops.

I pretended not to notice when people stared, and I played my part.

I courted looks and I felt good knowing that I drew their eyes, that I had power.

It felt like vengeance, to be something people wanted and couldn't have.

I became confrontational, stomping on feet and flipping people off. 

I grew up angry, angry at my own body and everything it meant.

What it means to be a woman; to grow up learning things no child should need to know.

Learning to scream, learning paranoia, always afraid of ending up on your back,

a hand over your mouth and panic in your throat.

Being looked at as a selection of parts on a platter,

before you even know how to live in your own skin.

To never escape the shame and humiliation of your own body. 

I never stop feeling the disgust and shame at the curve of my chest,

the line of my legs and the desire between them.

I never stop feeling ashamed of being female.