EMERGING FEMINISMS, Listen

By Sharon Lin

 

 

I don’t need your misogyny

Your happy-go-lucky sugar sweet kisses

wrought against wet skin in a tattered skin-tight

bathing suit against chlorinated water

 

I don’t want to listen to your praises

to hear my name spoken in a lilt, to see

your eyes greedily drinking in my figure

even – especially as you think I’m

looking away

 

I don’t need to hear you speak of me

like a secret you hold, not after the way

you speak to me like I’m invisible; I don’t

need you to see me to tell me that I

exist, that I’m no more a figment of your

imagination than I am my own

 

I don’t have to listen to you admonish

my people like I even have one to begin with

like we are eternally tied to our bloodline

no matter whether I’ve ever known those you

speak of in your sing-song voice or have ever

even seen the villages you continue to

pry me to describe

 

You approach me to ask me

what I am, and you are crestfallen to see

me turn away – I ask, what did you

expect to see, when you asked not of

my hopes or dreams but of the labels

that no more define me than my own

two eyes?

 

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Sharon Lin’s writings have appeared in WHITETEETHMAG, Muse Magazine, KidSpirit, Spirituality and Practice, AFA, YES! Magazine, AK! Magazine, and other publications. She currently resides in New York, and is a three-time recipient of the Scholastic Art & Writing Gold Key Award.