Emberlynn Pendergraft

Worn

A woman on the street called me a “nasty whore.”
 
She doesn’t know that I wore this skirt to get the attention of someone willing to think for me. Someone older, and wiser, and stronger, and more masculine. Someone to tell me what to do, and how to feel, and what to be.
 
Actually. She probably does. Hence the whole “whore” thing.
 
I’ve gotten to the point where I’m tired of it all. I don’t want my existence to be political. I don’t want to put in work to be heard. I don’t want to fight anymore. They want my body so badly. They want complete say in what it is allowed to do, and what it is allowed to be, and who it is allowed to belong to. Let them have it. My body is fucking tired.
 
I hope the woman on the street is not tired.
 
Tomorrow I will try again. I will growl and claw and bite the hand that force feeds me. I will exist in a body that is mine. A body that has not been claimed by anyone else. Tomorrow I will fight. But tonight I will find my way into the arms or lap or bed of a friend of a friend of a friend. They will tell me what to think.
 
The woman on the street is right. She probably knows that. I hope she spends the rest of her days fighting against nasty whores like me. I hope they fight back.