Pressing into the pinky-red cushions

Legs crossed to squelch the breeze

Wood conforming to society’s demands

Warm and clammy under my knees

Black spikes unveiling in the sun

Unpleasant like cucumber spines

Beneath my shielding fingers

I break unwritten guidelines

Catching glances from older women

They despise 

How I shred and stomp upon

The social standards they idolize

You pull me down

Pushing me back into a rigid box where I lack the power to escape

Stripped of my humanity, my dignity 

I’m just a people pleaser with a “proper” landscape

Oh...

How will a man ever look into my eyes?

Or caress my thighs?

How will he make me his bride?

Or hold me responsible for his child?

If I have prickly thighs

Boroughing into my head

A dizzying blur - the world spins

My head pounding until

I give in

Scraping my bubblegum pink razor up and down

Three small blades whisper

Over my expansive plains of pasty skin

Its dullness leaves behind a patch of whiskers

Rinsing off my balded legs

I pat them dry

The lingering white tea moisturizer does nothing to aid the burning

I was a fool to buy it

Your rosy hue of red and white

Mocks me on the shelf

Duller razors for higher prices

I tell myself it’s just a color

Yet your vibrancy coaxes me

To pay every extra dollar

Lathering handfuls of vanilla-coconut lotion onto my legs

Soothing the fiery ants that have come to play

The scent gives me a headache

And the itch still doesn’t go away 

You would think that my bullying brain would be satisfied with my smooth legs

But guilt consumes me for succumbing to society’s expectations

For perpetuating men’s control over women’s bodies

Their greediness and abusive relations

Numb

Bumpy and smooth at the same time

Struggling to love myself in every state

So I pace in circles of endless rhymes

“Everything’s fine,” I tell myself

But it’s not

Body hair is perfectly fine on a man

But gross and unacceptable on a woman

Because women are forced to please others

To act like a dispensable object instead of a person

Barbies are our standards for beauty

Smooth plastic without a wrinkle or hair

It is my duty to stand up against this one-dimensional beauty

To make people more aware of unfairness

Body hair. Is. Beautiful.

Body hair removal should be a choice, not a misogynistic confinement.

Know your worth.

Don’t settle.  Don’t conform.