The Young Woman’s Guide to Resisting Abuse for the Sake of Professionalism (A Poem)
Do not hand them
Your faltered smile
Your whimpered laugh
Your witty quip shooting forth from the ceramic glaze of your inscrutable expression
That hides the rage seeping through your temples
Smack the hand
Interrupt the bark
Make a scene
When they shred you to the consistency of manageability
When they bend you to their boxes
When they kick your feet out from under you
To take you down a peg.
When they sexualize your very breath in your body
When they try to wither you with their cold eyes and upturned mouths even as they tell you in sophisticated language they can’t conceive of the possibility that your brain is more capable than theirs
When they sharpen their knives on your back and wait to see if you’ll ask for more
Do not hand it to them.
What you give to them
In exchange for their slights, their cuts, their acid boring through your safety
