city bus scriptures

don't read this if you don't like the truth

warning: this is a poem written by a feminist
warning: I'm going to bring up points about fathers and grandfathers and uncles and teachers and friends and ex friends and friends who turned out to be rapists and rapists who happened to be men and men who are violent, men that drink and look at you like a wounded gazelle, men that don't need a drink to see you as meal to fill their desperate appetites for woman who are desperate to be left alone
warning
if the boy sitting next to you feels personally offended he is dangerous
warning
if you sit with you legs open during thanksgiving the closest men in your life will tell you you aren't a woman
as if they have the authority
to decide when you are or not
as if your identity is fluid and they control when you get to keep it
warning
this poem is about
how boys are raised as potential rapists by the same parents who
raised their daughter with tactics to get away
warning
I will not sugar coat the fact that men can be dirty
that doesn't mean woman can't be
but in my life thus far the hands that have pressed heavy on my untrusting skin
have been those thirsty for not my willingness but my weakness
they have been male
this is my warning to you
whomever you may be
don't be him