i wanted to tell you

talk show host, you ask me to stick to
feminism. do not talk about lesbians​, you say,
stick to feminism.
i see feminism is hotcakes now. or do you prefer it be
women's empowerment? 
you've sold women's bodies for years, now
you sell us our rights
you've decided to give us freedom in
installments, a piece of pie we should be
grateful to bite.

i wanted to tell you i cannot see one from the other i cannot
remove it like a slice of tomato from cheese sandwich.
they do not bifurcate like your hypocrisy
and liberalism; the feminism i know is a hot pot mix of
race, gender, sexuality, caste and all of my people's voices
you've hushed in everyday holocaust. i wanted to tell you
i cannot pluck the odd petals out because you
like your flowers clipped. i cannot pit
one woman against another like you want me to,
the way you've done for ages.
weigh one more because she sleeps with
men like you unlike the other who prefers your sister.

i wanted to tell you lesbian women aren't werewolves,
dark sinister beings bent on snubbing
your manhood, burning mankind,
they're not nymphomaniacs you've heard
titillating tales of, or
fantasize and get a hard on when their
bare bodies blaze your computer screen for
sizzling minutes before vanishing
promptly into their mythical worlds.

i wanted to tell you, they're my sisters, my mothers, my grandmothers, my daughters, me,
with our sceptre-willed bones, mottled skin,
flesh and hair weaved into tales,
hearts grazed by terror, blood sucked out, living, breathing,
gasping in this sulphurous void you've created
to please your own sex, build your empires
for progeny on progeny so you can continue
thriving. cockroaches thrive i wanted to tell you,
you live off us, you've lived off us, made our
bodies yours, our minds yours,
our love yours,
our mouths, our tongues, our aeons of lives, and
even our stories of births and deaths
yours.
live off us, emptying sperm after sperm into
all of those wombs you've no right to and
casually call it a Summer wedding at the plaza, and then
tuck us into your attic when we shriek your madness out.

i wanted to tell you your race is doomed the moment
you started seeing​ love
as the hallway to marriage.
i wanted to tell you that we will no longer
cut ourselves to fit in your trash box
you call equality, for
we're not plastic figurine for you to make
legos out of our limbs. i wanted to tell you
anonymous was a woman for hundreds of
years and yet she survived. so go,
take the back seat now, feminism will do
just fine without you, i wanted to tell you