“Make me a sandwich.”

You’re joking, of course.
Jock boys with your Adidas sandals
and calf-high socks,
American Eagle boxers sagging so low
it’s almost like you’re from “the hood”.

You’re young, you don’t know any better.
Boys will be boys.
You’ve got places to go, football games to win, colleges to apply to -
Ivy, just like your fathers.
But because I earn 80.9% of the salary a man does,

let me make you a sandwich.

You’re older now. Different “man”
still singing the same old tune.
English degree; cigarettes on your breath and Hemingway on your lips
(like all the sophisticates)

No, don’t say anything. You’re sorry.
You didn’t mean to; you’d had too much to drink at that gallery.
I was talking to him -
you saw. You assumed…
and now I have a black and blue bruise across my stomach
because 2,100,000 women are abused each year in America alone.

Wow. Looks like I overreacted. Seems like it’s normal.

Let me apologize to him - I know what he’ll say.
“You can make it up to me…
just make me a sandwich.”

I can make a sandwich, a home,
children.
I can make the bed and dinner for all of your goddamn poker friends.

But I cannot say no. I was drunk in a miniskirt, I was asking for it.
I cannot say yes. I’m a slut - where is my self respect?

Remove the horn from your son’s car –
if, and only if, he likes to use it when girls walk by.
Shorts cut high enough to reveal tan lines and tattoos
only mean it’s 98 degrees outside
and the temperature is higher than her patience.

“Give me a sandwich.”
No. Screw you.
Give me my humanity.