I know we live in an imperfect world

Where what’s between your legs determines your life

Will you live in fear of the night?

Burdened with a plight

To prove that you are more valuable 

Than the size of the fat deposits on your chest.

Or will you live in freedom?

Lover of the midnight coffee runs

Never glancing over your shoulder

For someone who isn’t there.

Will you wake up every day and paint your face 

Just so someone might deem you pretty?

Or will you roll out of bed and go to school

Running you fingers through your hair in the rear view mirror.

Some days I don’t paint my face

Some nights I drive with the windows down

Hair tied back music loud and the black air furling in and out of the car

And I forget that my place in this world is dictated by the fact that I carry my reproductive organs inside my body cavity

And I forget

I just live

And breathe

And sing

Then I hit a red light

A man crosses the street

And I scramble to double-check that I’ve locked the doors and I roll up the windows

Because if anything were to happen, the world would say that 

It’s my fault

My fault for being free