Hi!

I’m a fan.

Or should I say,

I am a breathing sex toy,

screaming ATM machine,

teeny-bopper obsessive drama queen?

I am nothing!

What’s funny is talking about celebrity culture—

or culture in general—

and being told that I know nothing of it.

I am not old enough 

or I’m just a girl!

If that is not a glaring sign of the problems I speak of daily,

well then I must be blind.

You see,

I don't need to be thirty to know what parts of culture affect me.

Then again I'm expected to internalize the misogyny with the air I breathe,

and turn into your pretty play thing until you are done with me. 

Relationships are capitalism, and I am unwanted productivity

because I speak for myself when you do not read the label correctly.

Well how dare me for wanting a say! 

Am I not allowed to use my brain or be aware of my own autonomy?

Don’t worry.

It’s a rhetorical question.

The answers are right in front of me.

You can get away with being naked on the cover of a magazine in which you undress the humanity of women who gave you their vulnerability; 

however, I am naked every time a man looks at me;

my clothes, my pride; my dignity slip off uncontrollably, 

vultures pecking at my still expanding ribs, 

God did not make me for this!

Why will no one stop this bleeding?

My prayers are muffled by corrupted rosaries, 

pretending to care for our struggling 

when they think it’s all make-believe.

But then what kind of twisted fantasy

allows the princesses to be robbed constantly by the kings and queens? 

Just kidding! 

I remember my childhood bedtime stories.

I was brought up in this life knowing I was silenced before I started speaking, 

and now I am screeching at the top of my lungs 

only to be gagged with reasons covered in hypocrisy,

and being told it’s my responsibility to believe.

Hi!

Allow me to reintroduce myself— 

wait actually,

I should be leaving.