what i don't like about being a girl

i don't like the way it feels when men stare at me when i walk down the street. don't like cat calls or his eyes on my tits. while i know the power of being pretty, feel it like i feel the eyes burning into my body as make my way, it takes things away from me.

i don't like how pretty ladies make each other into the enemy. how we have learned to scrutinize our own imperfections so effortlessly it is all we see in each other. i hate how we have convinced ourselves that we have achieved something meaningful by keeping ourselves skinny and pretty. how we have cut off our own tongues. i hate that we think these are the things we need to be.

and i hate the magazines air brushed thighs. the ones that i have spent my lifetime trying to achieve with exercises and salads and squats. i hate how hollywood has taken to believe that we must all stay young and firm and those plastic surgery lips and those fake boobs that stand so unnaturally still and i think they look creepy but then i look in the mirror and can't help but wonder without those things will i lose him? and these men with their balding heads and their beer bellies and wrinkled skin... how come we women have to stay perfect to keep them?

and i hate the assumption that men feel with their dicks. that they need a tight ass and perky boobs to keep their erections over time. this idea of "boys being boys" meaning men are not responsible for these things. this "reality" written in storybook and movie-reel that men may cheat or leave you for the next best thing. like it's all a matter of time.

i hate those men.

and i don't want to measure up. don't want to be afraid. don't want to have to tell that guy to fuck off when he stands to close to the place i am.

i want to be allowed to grow older. to gain wrinkles where i had questions, markers for the places i have been. i want to be able to enjoy pizza and ice cream and hot dogs without worrying about the weight it could bring. i want to see pretty girls on the street and not have them look at me like i am competing for the shoes they are in. i want to walk down the street without feeling those eyes staring... without wondering about his wife at home... without hoping that my own man never stares at a young girl like that when i am sixty years old and tired and stretched out and beautiful and soft from giving my life to him.