Experiencing womanhood in society

I am forever shrinking

Shrinking my mind

Shrinking my waist

I walk with heavy anchors on my shoulders

My head always facing down and I hide my heart away in a locked box,

Along with the complexities and the tragedies of my pink existence,

And I have swallowed the only key.

My body is rooted in soil made up entirely of fear

Tell me, is it any surprise that my voice quivers as it tiptoes out my mouth?

There’s this heaviness of shame in the heart of my lungs

And I cannot help but wonder how much more guilt I can keep shoving down my throat until it finally bursts..

I did not notice it when it happened but at some point in my life

Time became something wasted

Too many years spent starved, of food, of confidence and self love

The strings connecting self to soul have come undone

I am twisted from the outside in-

Don’t you see?

This sick, sad society

Has made me what they wanted-

I am one of them

Sick,

Sad

Spent too many hours pretending like I don’t care, that my eyes have blackened and hollowed.

So much so that the vampires have mistaken me for one of their own..

What I mean to say, is that every night I sleep with the dead

And then I rise with the living

But not as an equal

And each day I contemplate which is better of the two evils,

But the loneliness

It’s all the same.

-Onjang Shongzan