day SEVENTY EIGHT

What About the Men

I pick my fights carefully
like picking words from a near empty box.
I only have so many.
When I watch them talk
about not feeling invited
about being turned away
turned off
when they are so used
to being turned on
I’m not sure what else to say

expect

maybe this:

Maybe we don’t care
if you come with us
to Washington
or Portland
or LA
or New York
or Berlin
or Sydney

to stand arm in arm with us
the other half of this planet
the women you claim
to love
to need
to want
but also
keep down,
beat,
rape,
and
humiliate.

So to that, I think

maybe we are done caring
about your feelings
maybe, instead we realize
that we do not have to ask
to be seen or heard or protected
by our country.
Maybe we don’t have to beg or be blamed
when our bodies are beaten and broken.

Maybe there is a power
our collective presence
in being present
in showing up
arm in arm
and refusing to be ignored.

Refusing to be a talking point
a political weapon
reduced to our reproductive abilities
revered and then shamed for it.
To be both holy and horrible,
the Madonna and the Whore
with no room in between
to be human.

You want to come,
you claim so
but you don’t like
that it’s called
a Women’s March.
Your sense of self
is so fucking fragile
your masculinity
so tender
it falls like meat
right off the bone,

Our bones
the one we will carry
into the street
until we are dead.

--Ally Malinenko