As the sun sets,
With no sign of a taxi anywhere,
Fear creeps in with the evening breeze.

I see him approaching,
And instead of being relieved, panic
Washes over me.
Will I add to the statistics of rape victims?
Is this how I will meet my end?

If they can brutally murder their girlfriends,
Who am I to be spared?
I know it’s wrong to stereotype
but I know no female feels safe in the presence of the male species.
Uncles, fathers, brothers, boyfriends, lecturers, friends—they all harm us.
We are not truly safe.

While we scream black lives matter,
While we nip racism and the unjust killing of our brothers by our white brothers,
Remember us—your black sisters.
Scratch that, remember every female out there because our lives clearly don’t matter to y’all.

What wrong did we do?
Where did we go wrong?
What pushes you to harm a defenseless woman?

As he stands close to me, and his cologne blows in my direction,
I secretly wonder if it’s the last cologne I will smell.
He moves his hands to fix his jersey,
And I know he saw how much I flinched in terror.
Looking in his eyes, I see confusion.
He wasn’t expecting that; my fear of men is evident, my body is tense and my hands are shaking.
The taxi stops before us and I say a silent prayer of thanks to the Almighty for sparing me today.

It’s only when we are seated
That he leans over and says,
“I have two sisters and it’s only today I realized the fear they live with.”

We don’t deserve this.
Stop killing us.
Our no means no.
Love shouldn’t be toxic.
Our lives matter too.
Protect us, love us, and respect us.

~