Walking down the street
To place on foot in front of the other,
To read the street signs and cross when the lights flash
Simple.
But you are a woman
You are a woman in a complicated and confused world
You do not have the luxury of this simplicity
Of “easy”
You are a woman
The world is cruel
It is warped by misogynistic lenses,
Riddled with belittling words,
And infested with the sounds of the uneducated
The unwise
The ignorant
But nonetheless the loud, the obnoxious and the plenty
Hoots and hollers may appear to fall upon deaf ears
But even the strongest walls have their cracks
You flinch with each sudden act
A man approaches you with a question
You reach for protection
It becomes a habit and a dance
A noise
Look over your shoulder
A male’s fastened pace
Quicken your stride
Cross the street
Check your surroundings
Look for a fellow feminine face among a crowd of oppressors
This is not paranoia
Or exaggeration
It is expected
It is being a woman in a warped world
Perhaps you walk with a male companion
You are no longer viewed as vulnerable,
No longer forced to endure the firing of suggestive comments
Or grabbing hands
Or wandering eyes
But why?
Because a man is there?
Because he claimed you as his,
Has danger now been warded away?
Color me unsurprised
Misogyny strikes again
To walk down the street as a woman
To enter a world blinded by the idea that you are flesh
You are blood
A heart pumps inside you and a mind fills your pretty head
To be a woman is to be alive, to feel, to be human
If it walks and talks like one, then it is one
Simple.
To those men who fail to comprehend this elementary idea
To those who try to stop us in our steps
Who try to pollute the air we breathe with their existence
And who try to push us down with their empty words
Move aside,
Or be another step for us to press our heels into on the way to the top
A woman is walking