Thoughts and Poems are the Same Thing

female

Laying in bed last night,
My hand pushing farther and farther into my stomach, trying to push out the pain,
I realized that women are the tougher sex.

Everything you've ever been told about
Males being tough, and females being weak and fragile -- lies. All lies.
The ones who are truly strong are the women.

Lying, curled on the floor, trying to make the pain go away, once a month, a repeating cycle. Not being able to explain why you didn't do anything all day.

Not being able to explain why you don't want to go. Why you want to stay home in your pajamas, staring at the television alone. Wishing you could yell it to the world.

Women are tough because they have to hold it in. They aren't allowed to talk about it, they aren't allowed to complain, they are shamed if they use it as an "excuse."

But have men ever felt this pulsing pain? Have men ever felt so -- gross?
Known that since age 12 their bodies have been preparing them for motherhood?

What if they don't want that? Or what if they desperately do? Does the pain prepare them for that? Or is it a warning? Is it because of something we've done wrong?

Women are the tough ones. They go to school and work despite the pain. Despite the discomfort. They don't talk about it, silently pressing that hand deeper, deeper.

But the pain doesn't get pushed out because that's not how knots work -- the knots must be untied, but there's no way to reach them, to loosen their pull.

Scrunch tighter on the floor, crushing your body into a ball. Wanting to scream. Knowing you can't -- it's four am, your brother has school.

The female condition -- a tough inner core, battling within us -- a fragile shell, on the brink of shattering, always on the outside. Always the damsel in destress.

But then, no -- we must show them we are strong. So we wear dark lipstick and become dark poles of anger, power, shattering our exterior.

But it comes across all wrong -- now we're just bitches with attitudes, men haters, man eaters. They push us down, our darkness boils, boils over and spills.

Why can't we just be human beings? Why can't we just realize we are all human beings? There must be pain that men have that women cannot imagine?

Maybe women should realize that they have nothing to prove to men -- they are tough, and they can do it all. They should just be themselves.

Strong, powerful, graceful, kind.

And maybe if we spoke out, and sad "it hurts," instead of creating our dark exterior, the men would listen and maybe understand, maybe open up to us...too.