Oh Patriarchy

Oh Patriarchy,

 you multi-faced demon,

 how long you’ve shadowed me?

Since the moment I was born

 you decided I was not human first

 but a girl defined in your terms —

 fragile, weak,

 fit to nurture, but not build,

 soft, but not strong,

 dependent, but never free.

You are sly...

 You hide in blessings spoken at weddings,

 in words dressed as care,

 in the voices of those I love.

 Through them, you whisper:

"She must be protected,

 not trusted with her own dreams." 

And so,

 my worth was questioned,

 my stories silenced,

 my possibilities caged.

You chipped at my freedom,

 my relationships,

 my hope.

 Not always loudly —

 but through quiet control,

 through masks of love and tradition.

Your cruellest trick?

 You appointed women themselves

 as your carriers —

 drilling your falsehoods into their bones,

 teaching them to pass down

 the very chains that bind them.

Even blessings,

 the purest of gestures,

 you stained with discrimination.

And when voices rise against you —

 voices of feminism,

 voices of agency —

 you laugh.

You twist them into ridicule,

 paint them as selfish,

 as troublemakers,

 as too much.

You shut heads and hearts

 against the simple, profound truth:

 that everyone deserves

 respect,

 equality,

and to be treated as a human first.

Oh, you sharp malice.

 You have been named.

 I see you now,

 in the depths of my mind,

 in the silences of rooms,

 in the words of those around me.

And I will keep calling you out.

 Again and again —

 until your sly ways

 are no longer hidden.