It's Time

In the middle of Tokyo walks a girl, her head held high, the sunlight reflecting off her pitch black shades matching her skirt, her boots, her hair. Her stride is natural, a swagger that she has perfected throughout her life to deflect the gazes of scrutiny and objectification. The gazes that she is being showered with now; the gazes of an oxymoronic mixture of lust and disdain toward her exposed skin, the gazes of disgust toward her “unladylike” shade of black lipstick, the gazes of a million eyes scouring over her body in search of the slightest excuse to criticize. Yesterday, she would have shrugged the unwelcome attention off with a trained “I’m used to it” sliding off her pierced tongue without a trace of taste; she was used to it.

But that was yesterday.

Two decades she had been compliant. Two decades she had been silent. Two decades she had endured the drops of poison she has numbed herself to, that society has forced her to numb herself to.

She’s had enough.

She is getting sick, and she is getting tired.

It’s time to put an end to all of this.