Don’t settle
Don’t settle for demeaning conversations
For the endless drum of interruptions
men making feminism about them
who want to tell you, again,
the story of emasculation
Have no patience for:
“you can’t even talk to chicks anymore”
complaints that a small part of their freedom
has been re-examined,
that now
oppressors have to think before they voice
what
they want
to
do to you when no one is looking
Don’t settle for:
- strangers’ hands on your teenage thighs
- ‘accidental’ grinding on public transport
- bosses who come too close and invite you out for a drink
- working twice as hard with half the recognition
- never being listened to
- seeing your ideas live on in the works of others
- the worst role in every group project, the smallest room in every house,
meaningless apologies, men expelling their ego full of toxic waste
on you
and
everyone
who comes crawling
only
when they need you
anyone
who ever makes you feel
like
nothing
Don’t settle
expectations traded for club entries
late-night dinner dates or the name cock-tease
’But why don’t you come to mine, are you scared? I won't hurt you'
People making a verbal show
of concern and affection
with none of the action
others desperate for action and wingeing
the guilt-trip into unprotected sex
& “it’s because I love you”
the space you weren’t allowed to have
the friends you couldn’t talk to, the people you couldn’t see
because
otherwise
he’d get upset
Don’t settle for
never demanding an apology from the men who never get your name right
whispering baby through the night
lovers who compare you to their exes
on a weekly basis
and blame you when you get upset
and never thank you for the late nights the words the time
you wasted loving them
Don’t settle
for less than you deserve
because
this world
won’t give you anything
unless
you
take
it.