Why did you have money in your pocket  if you knew robbery was a real thing? Why are banks not made out of steel? Impenetrable doors from top to bottom. You never have to carry anything inside, not even your pen. You are going into this prison like fortress where everything you do or say will be scrutinised in case you’re an armed robber, and all you want is your money.

You need to have this Hermes Birkin bag but will you have it against the shop keepers will? The bag stood by the window saying, “Take me Take me, Im up for grabs, you know you want me, you know you want to carress me and put your stuff inside me”. This bag was displayed at the window at a price.  Oh it was also displayed on huge billboards? It was advertised on TV? Ads after Ads popping up on Facebook?! That’s because the shop keeper is looking for deserving people to have one piece of this solid item. Do you break into the store and take it? 

So you wanted to try instalments but shop owner says no. The banks won’t give you a loan for a birkin. Or maybe they don’t ship to your region so you need to know someone who knows someone to have it. Or they pick a particular class of people who can afford it because it’s high end. Oh there’s a wait list. But you don’t cut the line because a birkin can’t be caught dead with NURTW chairman? Bad branding!

Why carry a vagina around when I know rape is real. Why can’t I leave my vagina at home before visiting his house? Or maybe I wrap it in impenetrable metal bars? No? Doesn’t make sense.

What if I was displayed on the roadside in Allen? Buy me, buy me, but you can’t afford me? What if I’m displayed all over facebook and Instagram, cleavage flashing here and there, thick thighs, bikini photos, fresh fine face, looking fresher than a birkin bag? 

You cannot tell me that my price is too high. You cannot tell me you only want to borrow me for a few minutes of pleasure and shine. In fact I was displayed and I kept popping up on your phone thanks to facebook, and all you have to do is click. I keep popping up because you looked at other bags. We was just there in your face.

But we’re not even a firkin bag, we’re not printed on special paper from inside a room, we’re human beings, capable of thought, intelligence, motion, greatness, science and wizardry. We’re women. But you treat us with less worth than a birkin bag. You do that when you take us against our own will, making us powerless as you pin us underneath you, putting your stuff inside us and watching us cry, with no mercy. 

You decided we needed to be had, even against our own will. 

Why do you force us into corners, into stalls, onto beds and nearby platforms to rob of us what we own? We did not say you can have it! We did not say you deserve it. Your payment was rejected! But you rob us anyway, or try to. You berate us. You call us expensive, gold diggers, but still rob us. You call us high end, flashy, but you still want us. You insult us for having a long wait list but you want to skip the line to get us. Why? 

Is the black dress your problem or is it the in-between of your black thighs? Are the exposed cleavages your turn on or is it the thrill of domination? Of degrading another human being? Of making her think of you, years and years and years after it’s over? Is it the need to subject us, to remind us we’re nothing but slaves to your mastery? To carry out your religious instruction, to be the head? Is that it? You want to be the head so bad that you leave all the other verses in your power book, and instead cheat? You leave us with trauma that we transfer to our own children, telling them, be afraid of that man. Be afraid of all men. Don’t trust any man. Just get one man to marry you and be your savior and you will be safe. 

You’re doing well. You’re doing very well. You’re winning. But not for long. Whatever the flip in history was, whatever made you feel the urgent, potent drive to dominate and degrade, it’ll flip back. The white man just may always be ahead of the black man, but not for women. We will keep fighting and getting our voices heard, and we will keep fighting from victory.