smile.

smile.
laugh.
be carefree.
ask about the baby.
cross your legs.
be a lady.

tilt your head just 30 degrees,
be peppy,
stop looking at the door,
waiting for that one person,
don’t be sl*tty.

don’t be a b*tch.
make sure you smile big.
marry rich,
always remember
the game is rigged.
butt scrubs help,
padded bras are your breast friends.
there are bags under your eyes.
come on darling, show some skin, don’t be shy.

“i’m just trying to help
honestly, you could use it.”
this is why i prefer books on a shelf
they don’t tell me to
watch what i say
and to only eat once a day.

i can never win, never be enough.
my character is written in society
by men “who like it rough.”
it’s a romanticized tragedy.
a woman struggling to just live,
let me live.
if freedom is a job and slavery—a child,
let me abort this child,
oh wait, that’s not my call.

at 12, at 16, there is a timeline,
for all of us,
we’re mass-made products on an assembly line
to purchase. to keep.
to run-through and bury
deep.

“change starts with us, they say.”
we’re listening, they say
okay,
tell me why malala got shot in the face rooting for education,
why rosa parks was beaten for wanting emancipation,
or why Ruth was killed for wanting the 19th amendment.

we’ve been trying,
but change is a malfunction
one to be replaced with another “piece of art”
curated in cookie-cutter houses.

a girl’s best value is in her smile,
you’d look so much prettier if you’d smile,
there have been wars over a woman’s smile
if my smile holds so much power,
why is it that no one tries to win it?
no one pays attention to what makes it show it?
why is it that when i smile, i am ignored, not hurt.
why is it that for me to be heard, i have to yell.
be ugly. be angry. if i smile, i am nothing more than my smile. i see.
so let me live.
and
how about we start
with me smiling, when i want to smile.