How Embarrassing

“Girls don’t poop,” my roommate said.

My jaw dropped to the floor.

Wondering what I had been doing all these years behind the bathroom door.

Powdering my nose three times a day I suppose, faucets running keeping the secret 

because a women doing something purely human is indecent.

How embarrassing to be a woman

Tip toeing from class, hidden tampon up her sleeve.

Praying to Tampax your last one didn’t leak.

Or fabricating an excuse so he doesn’t take off your pants.

Because how embarrassing to be a woman

Like a wet vagina is so much worse than semen

And the scent of the source 

is the source of your jokes

Like a vagina is a secret and nobody can know.

We need to organize to equalize despite the difference between our thighs

The difference needs to start with the change between our hearts.

Let’s start with being human and work our way from there

Because girls do poop 

and that shit 

everyone should hear.

Society has taught me that I should be ashamed of being a woman.  I should be ashamed of my feelings. I should be ashamed of the way my body is. Fuck that. Being a woman is great and I am so tired of being told that it's not. 

The Insecurity Flu

That's it.
I need a sick day.
Chicken noodle soup.
and naps.

That's how you get better right?  When your stomach curdles and anxiety pumps in your blood, when your head is pounding and you're always on the verge of throwing up. I've never been sick like this before. Sick with insecurity.

I've always been a fight-society's-expectations be-true-to-yourself don't-need-no-man type of girl.  Even though I wear eyeliner and curl my hair... I've never been scared to look in the mirror.

As I've grown, The world has grown bigger, scarier, and less loving.  I feel better under my covers and pretending things like child marriage, famine, rape, sex slavery and abuse don't exist.  So much pain in the world. Now I'm scared to look in the mirror and see a girl who isn't good enough to heal it.

How can I protect the world if I can't even protect my own heart?  I'm not brave enough to love someone.

I'm reading news articles, researching your interests, practicing my jokes and learning new tricks so he'll think I am interesting enough.

Trying to suppress my emotions so he thinks I'm cool enough.

Not telling him how his smile makes my day perfect
pretending I don't need him to adore me
pretending I'm independent enough

His every move makes me nauseous, and I just want to be strong enough so it doesn't.

Insecurity is making me sick.
I skipped the self-loathing stage in middle school.  Or maybe it was hibernating, rotting my stomach until I had a reason to stare at my phone waiting for his name to show up

never enough