By: Linda M. Crate 

women
are not your broodmares,
just like you don’t
want
objectification;
neither do we
so knock us off your pedestals
we’re not paintings
to hang in your art gallery—
“do you want to go
out?” you asked;
no, i most certainly do not
all i want to do is to
go home without being harassed—
i have a right to walk home without
listening to your voice or
being hit on;
you are a stranger,
and i don’t talk to them—
i have a right to walk down the
sidewalk and not have
to inwardly groan
when i see you and your dog
yet again;
mother said to take it as a compliment,
but how can i?
when it’s against everything i am;
i am more than a pretty face!
there’s a heart beating in my chest,
a fiery passion in my blood;
i have talents and inspirations and a
soul that breathes—
just because i’m alive
doesn’t mean i want to be objectified,
if anything it means i want someone
to appreciate the whole of me
not to simply see my
beauty and covet it as theirs.