Gossip Girl

You’d think that Chuck and Blair were my best friends

in high school, how much they told me

what to do,

what I wanted,

right, wrong, relationships,

expectations, exceptions, assumptions.

How many of these straight couples have we seen on TV,

on the movie screen? You’d think watching the same story

would have tired us out by now…

but look at all those remakes!

“Boys will be boys” so let the playboys play,

let the Netflix episodes stream

with titles like: “Conquest 1: Anne.“

Do you pass the Bechdel test?

 

And yet, my mind relishes it!

3 hours of “Next Episode,” “Next Episode,” “Next

Episode” when I already know what’s coming.

Come on, socialized females—

we were taught to savor it,

to be silent, to watch

this brunette pair with pretty faces,

there is no grace here

when I’m still second class

there is no grace here

I think I’ll have to pass

and yet I’ve watched for 10,000 hours

officially a master

how many minutes have we been feeding

ourselves

this

shit?

The sexist disguised as the best friend,

the feminist disguised as the loser, the bitch.

“Paint it black,” Mick said,

so maybe we should scrap the painting

if I’m still quoting advice from the tomb

we are buried in, white male words

we are covered in.

 

To carry Chuck and Blair’s

abbreviations, hallucinations…

It’s heavy. It’s hard.

 

They taught me it’s okay if he leads me on;

I should wait. I should want it.

They taught me it’s okay if he looks at me

sideways, smirks, and moves on;

I should be flattered. I am top dog.

They taught me I should love a “he.”

 

Here’s a scrap, dear women.

Here’s a slice of the loaf you asked for.

Now, why aren’t you happy?

Why do you keep talking?

 

‘Cause we’re human.

‘Cause we’re hungry.

Damn hungry.

 

At the end of the day, my adolescent self watched Gossip Girl, idolized Chuck and Blair, and part of my heart still loves them. And that’s the point.

 

October 29, 2019

after the game

when

all

I

want

to do

is scream

about the patriarchy

but I know I’d just

perpetuate

a stereotype

what am I supposed to do

when I score a goal on you

and you act like I’m a tree

whose branch luckily swayed

in the right direction

what am I supposed to do

when I tackle you

as well as some dude

but my lack of maleness

makes you stutter

I’m not sorry

that girls can do

what you can do;

I am not sorry

that, sometimes,

we do it better, too.

 

I am 24 years old,

playing a game I love

more than men

for 20 and have been playing

with them, side by side,

for the same.

 

I’ve always loved being the underdog.

 

but why can’t you

just put your head down like you do

when your friend nails a freakin maradona

these things are not so hard to do

when we treat this sport like a drug

admit that it’s mine, too;

that just because your body

can lift 200 pounds doesn’t mean

mine can’t kick your ass

with a soccer ball

that’s all I want:

the chance to come to a game,

ponytail in tow,

and still feel like I belong

to something that was here

long before I called it my own,

long before I learned

that girls aren’t supposed to do

what boys do.

 

all the friends and teams,

games and sprains, fields

and nails to the head,

bruised knees and toes,

championships and titles later

 

and these guys still insist

I need to prove myself.

 

I am not a tree

standing in the wind.

 

I am a woman–

and a pretty damn good soccer player.

 

March 4, 2016

Why be a Feminist?

It’s

been on

my mind, lately.

……..

I

watch Zen

Buddhism videos every

……

day

and yet

today is the

…..

first

I have

watched a woman.

….

The

songs on

the radio really

….

are

just “okay,”

when one yells

…

“pussy”

I shrink

inwards, when “Choice,”

…

“Respect,”

and dare

I mention “Love”

….

are

excluded from

our social vocabulary

…..

I

want more

90’s anthems and

……

80’s

love songs

I want more

…….

Feminism

I want

all Feminism, all

……

Compassion

no rape-

culture, no need

….

for

school reform

I want Equality

…

for my mother, my sister, for me.

July 12, 2015

“The songs on the radio are okay,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nky4me4NP70

“I” and “Us”

We must

put the “simple”

back in

“society.”

…..

It’s a one-ring circus

where only “I’s” are the conductors

it will never suffice

in a world of 7 billion

of “us.”

….

How did our fathers land us here?

…

More like,

“How do we get ourselves out?”

I want to know

that if I were to have a daughter

she will see a river,

touch a lake with two hands;

if a son,

that he will not be afraid of dreaming

of an extra-compassionate-driven,

less-profit-informed

show–

..

instead of money give me roses,

I believe the future deserves them.

.

For it is our story to write,

to be written by a hand

that wrote of global harmony,

welcomed women

taking a stand for what is right,

taking a stand for freedom,

taking a stand

for “us.”

April 10, 2015

Too

“You’re independent,”

my crush told me,

my date for the evening.

“You’re a free spirit,”

my friend told me,

pushing up his glasses

with a touch of a finger.

I do not “love” either

of them, but I did love

the words they saw in me

between my collar bones

and within my eyes,

not past my shoulder

and out the door.

I would marry a man

that told me this–

tells me this four years later.

He would look at me,

straight into my soul

and say, “You can make it

on your own–

but I want to be there, too.”

 

June 6, 2014

Just Wondering

Do men wonder

what they look like

in a mirror, on camera,

opposed to the eyes of a loved one,

or their own soft pupils?

 

Do men question

their lack of hips and say,

“Hey, I should be plumper there

but still maintain my thigh gap.”

I stare at my own and wonder

 

What men do that I cannot,

if it is real or a facade,

if feminism is something

I can joke at– or if I am

less of a woman by doing so.*

 

I wonder what men would wonder

if they could see a woman wondering…

 

May 10, 2014

 

*I wanted to note that I am not against feminism in any way– I am all for equal rights for both men and women in every form.  These lines allude to some joking a friend (another young woman) and I would do at the start of the feminist movement, when it was still unclear to us that just because it is called feminism, does not mean we are only looking at women’s rights– it’s about equality for all.