I want a feminism that dares to be radical
To pull out the arcane, disabling, fractured systems “at the root”
I’m sick of mowing the crabgrass, thinking if we squint just right, the exhaustion of trying to squeeze bodies with curves into linear systems, then some day
When I get it right, when I curb my appetite, when I tone it down, when I figure out the perfect way to man-speak my ideas
When I stop loving so much or needing my sisters to help me through
When I am upright like the body part of the gender that defines what is good and true
When I can squeeze myself into demure submission or when I can acclimate to the zoo rather than pace my cage
Then I will have the belonging yearned for in the cells
I want the day to be today that I break from those cells or perhaps into them
Into my own unique and honored biology that I’m not willing to discard even with its profound inconvenience
Then, I want a little plot of land
Perhaps connected to others who want the same
And we will drink like sailors and dream up a new story for ourselves
Where the measure of our worth lies not in how dry and intelligent we are
But how wet and fertile we are
That we may say, you, you over there, you can do as you wish
But here, this is where love grows
where once there were only well manicured weeds
Then, with that sign at the gate
We will show men not how bad they are
But how beautiful
As what we draw up from the roots, as only a woman can to make the impossible possible where we are all restored by bounty