Ode to My Hips

I bought a pair of $12 jeans
Cut way too low, so now I have...
The dreaded MUFFIN TOP
But they seemed like a good idea at the time
Who can pass up $12 jeans?
But now I realize they will become my least favourite pair
Relegated to the back of the closet
Only to be worn as a last resort
When it's either walk around in underwear
Or wear them
And when I DO wear them
I'll have to try to match them with the pefect shirt
To hide
The fact that I have hips
See, it's all about the illusion of perfection
And we as women have been told
That our curves are unacceptable
Must be disappeared
     Like the Guatamalans who speak
     The goddamned truth
Or, at the very least
Hidden
So as not to offend
Other, less hippy women
Or men
We must, above all, be pleasing
But see, I don't have the perfect shirt
I have hips, thighs
An in-your-face body
That can't and will not be ignored
Or shrouded behind a flimsy shirt
So I'll poudly show them
And allow them to speak their round, womanly truth
And refuse to apologize for myself
Because a life of hiding curves
Trying to be pleasing
And not to offend
Has added up to a severe loss of self
     A mere composite of the people I admire and loathe
     And I don't know what I like, or think, anymore
And a beer bottle slapping me across the face
Only to be told that still
I am not satisfactory
And allowing my heart to be stomped on
By the footsteps of those
Walking out of my life

My roomate today tells me
With her face grimaced
That she can see where I'm going with poetry
But she doesn't like angry women
I tell her to be careful
Because her face will freeze like that
A fate, for her, worse than death
Because that would offend others
Even more than my hips in my $`12 jeans that give me muffin top
Because she yearns for complacency
And all she wants in life is the illusion of perfection
At the expense of truth
She'd rather be hurt
Than be enraged when it is due
Because we should be enraged
There are things that deserve our rage
And I'm enraged
At my rapist- turning me, at best, into a mere statistic
At my father-  the bottle wielding bastard
At politicians, whose greed is leading our nation, and guiding their decisions
At world leaders, who act as though human life is something to sacrifice
At religions, trying their best to placate the masses
And at my roomate
Who wants silence at the expense of my truth
Your truth
OUR truth
And she doesn't want to hear me speak it
Or any of the other poets who have things to say
And, more importantly, that we all need to hear
So fuck you and your complacency
Because I refuse to relegate my anger
And my jeans
To the back of my closet