Dear Men

By Kendall Milton

Women: how would you like men to show up for you during this time?

Men: shhh read the comments.

The first Instagram post I see and don’t scroll past

I just stop and stare

Dead in my tracks

I realize, the first time I’ve ever seen a man ask

It’s like I’ve finally been given permission to say how I feel

But why do I feel I need permission? What’s with that deal?

Maybe this is just the first time I’ve ever felt heard

And from a random man’s Instagram post

How fucking absurd.

God, how can men show up for women? Let me see

Time to unleash the wild woman, who’s always been in me

Let us tell our stories, I write

Let us be in positions of power

Not just for a quick fix minute, or a cute #thisisthemoment hour

No let us rise. In all areas of life

Ask for our opinions. Listen to our strife

Don’t tell me how you think it feels, cuz you could never understand

All pain a woman really feels when she thinks about the man

Don’t tell me that you’ll fix it, unless I tell you how I’d like it fixed

This isn’t something you can just repair, by swinging around your dicks

Just sit there, holding space for us

And let us know it’s safe

To express all that we truly are, and break free from this cage

Take accountability. Cuz that’d really make you a man

The type of person who owns his shadows and really takes a stand

Don’t say you support me and not heal the patriarchy within yourself

Not really changing, while echoing sentiments like everyone else

We’re dynamic, intuitive, wise beings

Not just objects to be owned or conquered for your pleasing

Allow me to pass you the burden of the weight I’ve carried on my shoulders

And don’t just stand there holding it

Move mountains, move boulders.

Don’t just open the door a little as you still sit in your towers

Let us run the institutions, give us the power

Elevate and share our voices, but not just to cover your own tracks

Do it from a place of true empowerment and really have our backs

Don’t do it cuz it looks good, cuz at the moment it’s what’s hot

Hiring a woman here, while Mr. Big Dick still calls the shots

Don’t do it cuz you should, or because it’s good street cred

Do it cuz the world’s better place, when women get ahead

And don’t make it harder on us. Pay us what we deserve

You want to show up for women?

This is how you can serve

Don’t speak for us. Or tell us how we feel

See us as brilliant and powerful

I want to see you kneel

Bow to us as we take the lead

And lead this world from pain

And when you think you have the answer, please I ask that you refrain

Cherish us as we express all that we are

Cuz what’s been suppressed within us is why SHIT ever got this far

And what hurts to most is how we’ve been stripped of our magic

Honestly that, that’s what’s really tragic

It’s been laying dormant

But now it’s here to be unleashed

Let us lead you from the darkness

And see the power of our beast

Leading you away from the ruins the patriarchy’s created us to be

Cuz it was never really you and it was never really me

June 28th, 2022