As a poet, I am not here to heal men, to do their emotional labor, to unilaterally support them, to coddle, to worship, to grovel, to beg, to fawn, to mollify, to explain, to reason, to plead, to argue, to prove that I am not nothing, that I am worthy, that I am human, that I belong, that I am a poet, too, which does not mean I was put on earth for their pleasure, their crushes, their fantasies, their abuse, their harassment, their drunk dialing, their sidelining, their dismissal, their denigration, their sublimation, their blacklisting, their name-calling, their erasure, and their defamation.

If you come at me, I won’t flinch. Not this time. I’ve survived much worse than you.

I say this to the past, present, and future. I say this for myself and for others so they may come to fully realize what they are and are not here to do as poets and as human beings.

May we all live our lives fully and without using others to fill what’s empty inside us.