Poetry...good Heavens. It's not something I usually write because I'm horrible at it, but these three I think are decent. I actually did pretty well at a couple of really tiny, insignificant slams with them, so that makes me feel good. Anyway, the first one was in the school lit mag, and I got a lot of good feedback from girls. And some guys like it, too. It's not as long as it looks...that goes for all of them.

Angry Feminist Poem

Every woman is your enemy, ladies.

Their boobs, their ass, their stomach, their hair

Are your challenge.

They call you vicious

You're a bitch

And you can't be friends, because you're enemies.

But why all of this warfare?

What makes you gauge yourself against them?

What makes them your ruler and yardstick instead of your equal and friend?

Men.

But it's not their fault, right?

They just want the best and who can sanely blame them?

It doesn't matter to them that they're fat

Because we could love them still.

So can't they do the same for us? Of course

But then why do you worry?

Why aren't you comfortable with your smaller breasts and bigger thighs?

Maybe it's because that perfect woman is everywhere.

Ha! You were always told she didn't exist, right?

Bullshit, ladies, bullshit

She's not airbrushed at computer generated or anything

She's right in front of you.

Sure, she's bulimic or on speed, but she's as real as laxatives, honey.

You think I exaggerate, right?

Well, I thought so too, for while,

Until I realized how many people I knew with eating disorders

How many girls were in therapy

But boy did they look great.

Oh, she's real, all right,

As real as flipped up toilet seats.

She's on T-shirt tags and in soup commercials

Every cigarette ad, every movie poster.

We damn her and hate her, but why?

The real reason is because she has the key

The key to the all mighty man

In with his lecherous, lusty, laudable legion of chums

That can look at her and give their solemn approval

And look at you and wonder why they bothered looking.

But you can't argue with them

My goodness, no!

If you argued you're just an angry feminist,

So inflamed simply because you haven't got the tits to be otherwise.

You're just jealous of the size small woman on the package

Of your size large underwear.

You can't argue with them, because if you argue, they won't like you,

No man wants a woman that takes pride in being female.

No man wants a woman that rejects her plight.

No man wants you.

Just laugh, like a woman, because you can't change them all.

There's not stopping them except to give in.

Why put up a fight?

After all, we're equals now, aren't we?

You don't dare say otherwise, do you?

It doesn't matter that you make less money

And you're the only one to run a vacuum in TV commercials

As long as they say you're equal, you'll just have to accept it.

So keep being equal-

Keep pitting yourself against your friends until they're your nightmare.

Keep ignoring that you've been harassed

Because it's really no big deal

You know it happens all the time

That's just the way men are

And you have to accept that if you ever want to snag one.

So don't let one catch you reading this

Because then the word will be out that you've fallen prey to that hogwash

That us fat, ugly, bitter dykes put out.

I'm not fat, nor ugly, nor bitter, nor a dyke

But I've got to say it anyway because

No one else will because

No man wants me anyway because

I'm sick of looking at women as competitors

Instead of partners.

And I had a poem about a homeless man, and I really liked that one, but I don't know where it is. So I'm upset. But here's the third one...not about a homeless man. I wrote this about someone, and now I've decided it's about someone else. Aren't I fickle?

your eyes emblazened with a lustful light

lips recoiling from a heated kiss

I have never seen you like this

and I fear the day when I do

for I know that I will not be the cause of it.

you've fooled the other--maybe they don't know

in the halls you look so pure

they think they're getting a passing grin from the embodiment of innocence

but I know there is something utterly filthy below all that

something of trashy novels with pastel covers

of late night cable specials

and magazines that come wrapped in plastic.

it's a disguise, a costume, an act

like 'the farmer's daughter' or 'the naughty nurse'--

you're 'the innocent schoolboy'

I see how it works...

you're waiting for 'the frisky cheerleader'

or 'the curious choir girl',

who ravages boys like you 24/6

and repents are Sunday.

you're waiting for one of them to come along

and play the game.

I'm no curious choir girl, or frisky cheerleader,

but I could play.

I could be 'the good girl dominatrix',

who smiles sweetly at all the teachers,

but once they go around the corner

I've got you against a locker

with your arms pinned over your head

combination in your back

and my body on your front.

or, I could be 'the weak damsel in distress'

wilting before a spider.

you could throw it outside and give it the Boy Scout salute

and take advantage of my fragile state

on a desk in an empty classroom,

or--

how devilish--

on the unlighted stage in the auditorium.

I could play.

I could be any of them.

I could even try to be me, if that's what you wanted,

because when your eyelids dropp with the weight of desire

I want to see it from the front,

not from the side, and down the hallway 30 feet at my locker.

when you exhale someone else's breath

I want it to be mine.

if you must have it

let me give it

for I'll die if you take it from someone else.

Looking back...I like that less. I wish I could find the old homeless guy poem. That one was better.