136. WLTM
there’s this bird
on TV
banging on about how
this one-way medieval mirror
empowers her to be herself,
safe from any potential rapist
mentally creaming himself
over her glossy hair, eyelashes & lips;
only
doesn’t this self-regarding view
assume that any woman is desirable
simply for being a woman ?
I wonder if, one day,
she might wake up
and lift the veil
and feel the brush of freedom
on her skin –
walls
can build a home or a prison,
but a gilded cage
is still a cage.