Lydia May

Striding into gendered combat

A fight for my rights against

Restraints around a constricted identity

Labelling the able incapable

A toxic mantra that turns our strength flaccid.

Your validation is our suffocation.

My confidence has consequence,

Spitting out saliva from your tongue

You shoved it down my throat so forcefully

Taking advantage of my liberalism,

Misuse of my trust and sexual positivity.

That now suffocates my ovaries, unable to produce the fruit of femininity.

The skin I bare invites you to stare,

An uninvited touch and a whisper in my ear,

You viewed my promiscuity as a promise

Sexual consent seemingly superfluous

I am not ashamed for my performance

Dancer from a young age,

I have learnt to adore us.

My body and soul, we are a unity,

Just because you see one you choose to see through me

My personality has a power of invisibility

Do not cheapen me

My motivation is not to be desired

I am more than an object of your affection

I am a statute erected upon a pedestal.

That you cannot reach

My female qualities are untouchable

Sanctimonious in my struggle.

And active in my activism.

I see strong sisters question themselves,

Play a blame game as you place them on shelves,

More disposable than the fashion you wear,

You claim to be in gods image

But our body is art

We are reflected in nature

Our folds are found in flowers

Cherished curves in contoured valleys.

You made them nothing

In their own self perception

Made them believe they are something short of perfection.

My sisters have limitless power within them,

From many religions, race and origins we stem.

Your conventional close mindedness

Causes exclusivity and erasure

Wonderful women are not from a mould,

Your sex does not set your identity,

When gender is a separate entity.

I am a woman and I am proud.

Unapologetically female.

I am more powerful than this society,

We are better than you ever let us be.