“What do you drink, wine?” 

He laughs in my face when I tell him I drink whisky. 

It’s a funny thing, to be belittled so often 

by men who think you’re too dumb to notice 

or too meek to say otherwise. 

A lot of people don’t understand, 

or choose to ignore, 

the pain of existing in a world not made for you 

and those intent on reminding you of that 

every 

day 

through the anger in their words, 

the look up and down your body, 

the smirk on their face as they leave, 

knowing they can get away with it because they’re a man. 

There are those who tell you to ignore it, 

or forget about it, 

or that it doesn’t really exist. 

They don’t see the long line of ancestors, 

the women who came before. 

The women who struggled, 

the women who were silent, 

the women who screamed 

for a better world for us. 

I keep going 

so that their lives were not in vain. 

The women, deemed witches, burnt at the stake. 

The women who risked it all in back alley abortions because their

bodies were not recognised

as their own. 

The women, mouths shut, who lived and died with the abuse. 

I keep going 

so that women in the future will not feel the same. 

The women who will not have to grin and bear it. 

The women who are no longer silenced. 

The women who will roar, and roar, and roar.