To Be in a Time of Subtle (In)Equality

To wake up, to feel exhaustion. To snooze the alarm, to hear it go off again. To decide between snoozing once more or having time to put on some mascara. To decide between feeling good and looking good. To decide between feeling sane and feeling beautiful. To resent the fact that you can’t have both.

To go to calculus. To watch your professor command the room. To wish you could answer her questions with the same confidence that she asks them. To wish you could answer her with the same confidence as the boy behind you, even when he’s wrong. To leave the room. To hear him call her a bitch on the way out. To know that she gave him the grade he deserved. To say nothing. 

To come home, to wonder if “home” is the right word.

To move cautiously and with restraint. To fight for a laugh. To fight for a gaze. To fight to be heard. To wonder if your success is impressive or a threat. To check your phone, to stare at the screen, to put your phone down. To walk to the bathroom, to step into the shower, to run water through your hair, to feel beautiful. To look in the mirror. To doubt. To rub off the mascara streaming down your face. 

To write, to reflect, to feel better. To remember to turn your brightness down, to flip the paper over, to have a secret.

To go to bed, to wake up, to feel exhaustion. 

Process Notes:

My goal in this piece was to take the reader through the day of my “subject.” I attempted to capture some of the more subtle injustices that women experience on a day-to-day basis for two reasons. The first is that the social issue I’m choosing to focus on this quarter is gender inequality that specifically surfaces through microaggressions or other subtle offenses. The second reason is that in centering my focus around the day-to-day, I felt like I could simultaneously avoid the mistake of being overbearing with my message. Also consistent with this goal, I attempted to embed subtle suggestions about what’s happening throughout the piece. For example, in the first stanza, I mention the conflict that the protagonist experiences about whether or not to put on mascara. Later in the poem, I include a line that the mascara was running down her face after her shower, insinuating that she decided to put some on.