Dear Men

The world does not owe you
Anything:
Not success
Not sex
Not a wife
Nor children -
Not breeding
Not access
To bodies 
That are Me not You.

Not to lives which are not yours.
Not to your fists on our flesh
Nor your rage unheeding
Of the things that you want - 
Snatching the best of the best.
Not to the food on the table
Or the marks on my skin
Left by knives
That you grappled
Screaming of my
Original Sin.

No you are not entitled to
Your words spoken to us
What we do not solicit,
Nor the threat of your bodies
Not to the strange or taboo.

Dear Men, I won't give you
My time or my breath
If you are not related to me
I have no wish to attest
Nor comfort
Or reassure
That you are not 
Like him.
I don't owe you
My feelings
Nor what's left of my days
Nor my solitary leanings
Or a chance for you to prove
At my expense
That you are safe
When I have nothing
Left I am able to risk
That this time
That I trust you
You won't
Rape and won't hit.

You say you will seize
That which is not given to you
That makes it not giving
But forcibly taking that which is
Not for you.
Your sense of entitlement
Is out of control
It is boosted and puffed up
On Patriarchy's goals.
And if you have daughters
How do you reconcile
The impact of your damage
Upon her innocent smile?

Dear Men
Can't you see 
When you insist you are us
Then you have never been more you?
That your loud violent insistence
Is manly and masculine
Woman hating and
Makes me want to spew
All over your
Your confident plundering
Of all that you see:
Your taking of handmaidens
To pull your apples from the tree,
Your aping of our beauty
Your stealing of the props
You insisted we use
So you can look at us
And wolf-like lick your chops.

And still you ask me
If I would like to dance
If I would sit with you
Would I give you a chance?
You call me 'white boy'
As I walk down the street
Then pull down your pants
Invite me to eat.

When I tell you I like women
To be in my bed
You tell me you don't believe it
It's just that I haven't met
Your cock yet,
And I really would laugh
I would laugh till I cried
I would laugh
Except after everything
You have done to me
My tears have run dry.