Didyouknow



				Do you know?

Do you know how it feels to be touched, kissed, and forced into someone's shadow,

to be held until they are done with you, to question every man's footsteps,

to meet someone, talk with them in class, maybe even feel free

to invite them over to work on a project together and

realize only when he is in your room that he is the same? If you know these lessons

		do you understand what it feels like to be a woman?

And to be told your whole life that you are free,

when you learned young, late at night, that the shadows

only curled around your bed, and cringed when you heard the footsteps

of your father come� to teach you lessons

	of what it was to know fear and to be a woman.

Would you understand if you have felt the arms of a stranger and

seen them tear at your clothes, cover your mouth, teach you a lesson

meant for Jenny and Michelle and Sarah, meant for every woman,

feel the blade pressed up against your neck and
know that forever etched in your mind will be the echo of footsteps

you wished you heard before he dragged you, screaming into the shadows,

	before you learned that shame, terror, pain, and endless memories are also free

and so abundant you can feel them mingle in your husbands heavy footsteps

and see them multiply in nights crying, wiping blood off the kitchen floor and
days of remembering every word, every trigger, every lesson

of how not to make him do this, how not to be a "typical woman",

knowing in your heart that the only way to be free

is to learn what not to do, how not to provoke his angry shadow.

By then you know it's okay for them to enjoy the body of any woman

or if you're too far away to whistle, or honk, or scream a lesson

Of "Hey, bitch!"or "Want some baby?", to force you to walk in the shadows,

Eyes cast down to escape comment and to let you know that you were free

to not put on that much makeup or to wear baggy clothes to avoid this and

it's that your fault if running up behind you, you hear footsteps.

Because you're a whore anyways, look at those tight jeans and
you know you wanted it. You used to pull down your panties and feel free

to ask for ten bucks, making money on the streets as a runaway and a woman,

until that day you left the hotel, eyes covered in black and blue shadows.

Next time, you'd ask for five bucks, you had learned your lesson.

You'd walked in every woman's footsteps.

If you knew the lessons of what it is to be a woman

and understood how to be female and free,

then would you release our� footsteps from your shadows?

			-Heather Kelly

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws