Shoulders Suffocated.

The bellow is me exploring my feelings about my body and what it means to have one in our society.
About being made to feel like a sex object everywhere I go.
Feeling like it's not ok to take my sweater off when it's hot out because of what I am then subjected to.
How I've been made to feel it's my fault that I get hollered at...or worse.
How it's my duty to put up with cat calls because I have a decent body. And it's my fault that men react to me.
I realize more and more that as years of unwanted advances from men pile up the more I want to hide my style and my body. It isn't fair. It isn't right. And it isn't my fault. And most importantly I shouldn't have guilt or be ashamed.

I have just started to see how fucked up society's messages to men and women are about men and women. And self worth. And self esteem. And more. I really need to do more reading and thinking to develop a solid opinion on this but this video and blog post began to help me believe it's not me that's in the wrong.

Stop Telling Women to Smile and An Open Letter to My Daughter: Your Modesty Is Your Choice.

sunny sidewalk
uncomfortably hot
smooth knees
unknowingly alluring neckline
shoulders suffocated
breath abated
music bumps
windows rolled down
suggestive slang
coil back at the vulgarity
leave me be
redirect
life changed
never ok
sex object
my being is no longer mine

self medicated
doctor's out
head hangs with the weight of it all
knowledge, shame, undeserved guilt
eyes averted
no one look
but someone see my pain

a chuckle
manly grunts
I see them seeing me
naked, vulnerable
I pull my clothes tighter
weights slam
echos reverberate my body
they get trapped inside my head
relentless is the panic
muscles tighten
my vision goes
my heart races
I see only shapes
are they approaching me
fight or flight
flight flight flight