I like wearing shorts.
In the heat of the summer,
I love the feeling of cool air
On my bare skin.
But my shorts have power.
When I wear them,
I never have to wait to cross a road.
People give me freebies, they buy me drinks.
Once, my shorts made two cars bump together,
Like Salma Hayek in Desperado.
And my shorts can make people talk.
They make people say things about me
I wouldn’t want my daughters to hear.
They make men stop and ask
For coffee, for my number, if I want a ride.
They even have the power to make me change direction.
When I see the same car circle the car park twice,
Instead of walking my favourite way through the woods,
I take the busier path.
There is safety in numbers, you see.
The same cannot be said for shorts.
My shorts have power, but
Although I am the one wearing them,
I am not the one with the power.
It is the shorts that dictate
People’s opinion of my values, my intelligence,
Their expectations of what I will and won’t do,
And how I will tolerate being treated.
When I am wearing the shorts,
It seems fine to assume
That I will be fine with whatever you do.
After all, I am the one wearing them,
And who would wear such shorts
If they didn’t want to invite that kind of attention?
But, still, I wear the shorts.
Because I don’t want to back down.
Because I don’t want fear to tell me what to wear.
Because, after all, they are only clothes.
And because, when my daughters hear the next story on the news,
I want them to know that she wasn’t asking for it,
That maybe the weather was just hot
And she just wanted to feel the cool air
On her bare skin.
Liminally yours,
K
yes, sister!!! Wear the shorts - after all, they look so good on you ;)