My Brand Of Feminist Rage Reads ‘Kill All Men’

Let me tell you about this rage-

I want to scream
Loud and raw
And scream and scream and scream
On and on and on

Until this rage monster inside me
That has been conditioned to
Be calm, legs together
Be kind & caring & nurturing
Conditioned to make excuses for them
As they kill us and kill us-

I want to scream
Loud and raw
On and on and on
Until this rage monster inside me
Hears the call
Wakes up from its slumber
Stands up
And stretches, flexes,
Growing into its full self

I want to scream
Loud and raw
Until this rage monster
Flies out of my mouth
And takes over my mind & body

Why am I screaming?

Because I am on fire
Everyday.
I’m burning at the stake
Men.
Are the gas that keeps this fire lit

I am on fire
Everyday
I’m burning at the stake
And the men in my life
Want to sit around trading stories
About the moment they realized that every woman’s lived experience is one flaming hell hole
And then they sit back, looking at each other
So proud of themselves for sharing this breakthrough moment together
Talmbout “wah it’s so hard. I can’t even imagine what you all have to deal with…”

Fuck y’all!

I am on fire
Everyday
I’m burning at the fucking stake
And the men in my life
Want me to stop for a moment
So i can placate them,
educate them,
convince them
Reassure them that no, you’re not a monster
You’re one of the good ones

What does that even mean?
“one of the good ones?”
because for all your goodness
The fire that is burning me alive,
Everyday,
Is not getting any less hot.

Sure, you’re not going around beating, raping & killing us
But you are not doing anything to stop it either
You get to live freely,
(at my expense)
In the blissful oblivion that patriarchy grants you
Because you don’t own a vagina

And then ON TOP OF THAT-
You get to go home
And pat yourself on the back
Talmbout
“I’m one of the good ones..”

I’m on fire
Everyday
I’m burning at the stake
And the men in my life
Want to sing about my fortitude
And marvel at my beauty
How does she do it?
They ask as they write the next useless song
Cue Sauti Sol, H_art the Band & all their lame friends

I’m tired
I’m exhausted
I want to die
But we can’t let them see us sweat
We can’t let them see us weak
Because they will come at us harder

So we put on our faces
And they sing songs for us,
about us
“Strength of a woman” they sing
“Empress medina” they crow
“Melanin queen” they heckle

I am on fucking fire!

This rage
This volcano of rage-

I hate men
I hate the monsters that rape, beat and kill my kind for no reason other than we own vaginas
I hate the men in my life, the good ones, whose goodness does nothing for me
I hate the man who made me but treats me like less than an afterthought
I hate all men because they are the thing that keeps this fire lit

What is this world?

Where-
It hurts to love men
to care for men
to be friends with men
to fuck men

It hurts to show men basic human respect and receive the worst forms of violence in return
It hurts when men ask me to recount my worst nightmares over and over because to them the rage seems unnecessary

I am on fire
Everyday
I’m burning at the stake
And the men in my life want to give my a sympathetic hug
And fix their mouths to say some dumb shit like
“I feel like I want to ask what happened?”

What happened?
I am fucking screaming.
What happened?

You bro.
You happened
You keep happening

I am on fire
Everyday
I’m burning at the stake

You are the match, the gasoline & the firewood
You are the cause of this fire
Your existence is what keeps this fire burning.
You happened

Your oblivion is the hottest part of the flame.

This rage-
Everything has been said and done

I am done begging for compassion
I am done waiting to be escorted home,
I am done waiting for the system to deal with rapists

I am done screaming into a fucking void!

It’s a miracle that any men still walk this earth
Because-

If all us gave in to our rage at the same time
All across the world
For just five minutes??
There would be no men left.

Because men. All men.
Each one of you is somebody’s monster

I call these five minutes ‘Go Time!’
Our goal is simple
Kill your monster

In those five minutes
Revenge is ours

In those five minutes we lean into the rage
We open up and we let it out
We deserve to.

We deserve to unleash our rage onto the monsters that caused it
The monsters that harm us so flippantly
and yet so brutally,

Even worse than the monsters,
are the “good ones” who do absolutely nothing about anything
They deserve to feel the burn of our rage too

“Go Time”
Tell everybody
Kill all men
Kill all rapists
Kill your monster
Kill and kill and kill until we destroy the patriarchy

It’s Go Time
Our five minutes of rage start now
One monster at a time
One rapist at a time
One misogynist at a time
One do-nothing-good-guy at at time

Tell everybody
Kill your monster
Kill all rapists
Kill and kill and kill until we destroy the patriarchy

Fuck the patriarchy.

***

(Read next: I’m Grace Jones, Bitch)