No Man

I am not a library book
and you are not a child collecting a stamp collection in the pages of me,
to hand-off to your friends like a football in the virtual pixels of your fantasy league,
and cross me off your bracket with the easiness of devouring a six pack during Shark Week.
I am not a sword for you to swallow
a white whale,
a circus act for you to master.
I am not bread for you to burn the edges of,
and feed me to the ducks because i could not be groomed palatable enough for your consumption.
I am not your blood bank,
not your goth girlfriend to suck the neck of  like a teenage vampire romance
not the universal donor to your every need,
the feeding tube, the surgeon, and the wound that you complain about.
I am not your edgy, carries a lighter but doesn't smoke soul-fixer
to teach you the term socialism off of a flash card.
I will not peel you open gently like a papaya, to expose the fleshy and soft parts of you to the world
and sit on my knees like a quiet catholic schoolgirl and swallow the seeds.
I am not your right, your open season in maritime law,
I owe no man a rib, my existence;
just as I owe no sun for making me warm
or tree for letting me breathe.
So dear men,
despite what you and your phallus may think,
you have nothing on me.


-anna sluder 

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