It's just really frustrating:
how it only takes one person to ruin
a safe space; feeling obligated
to play into the "nice guy's" hands; how you
can point out you're busy and not be heard. "Just one,"
he says, "just one:"
minute,
poem,
song, 
mumble,
touch -- 
just one turns into many and you start
to wonder: "again?" with a heaving sigh
and a strained sort of smile that will never be
noticed because: your expression
is not firm enough; your life
is not excuse enough; you are
female and that is to be:
infirm, impotent, asinine, alkaline
as in basic. You're a basic bitch
and this is your lot in life to be man's best friend,
to take it from him doggystyle and to accept
unwaveringly that "he a dawg" when he
makes the mistakes you would never dare
because you're house trained and that
is what you have to look forward to. Starting with
Step One. You meet a guy and he's a nice guy 
with buzz words like pretty and smart and 
pretty smart who winds and unwinds his syllables
in mind-numbing patterns long after you say: 
"I'm busy." A friend is watching and in your head
you can hear her with buzz words like sensitive and creative
and sensitively creative and it's no longer a question of "if" -- 
you can see the expectation in his eyes because "silence 
is consent" and you have one job in life, to concede -- but "when."
How long before you fork over your number, before you answer 
his emails, before you agree to one date-that's-not-a-date 
that turns into many come-on-it's-a-date's. You are a game 
and he's playing fetch and you'd stop coming back 
if there wasn't a chain around your neck -- adorned in diamonds, 
there's a leash from your hand to your heart to his fist. 
It's really frustrating: 
to feel like a misanthropic misandrist when all you want
is someone to ask "is it okay if" and not expect anything 
but sincerity, honesty, complete and utter liberty; to feel 
small; to know that the safe spaces were wedged 
in between jostling elbows and unwanted brushes; 
to be a girl, a woman, a member of the opposite sex that knows 
when to shake hands and when to play dead.

Roll over, Rover.