we are taught to be complicit in our own dehumanization

i was good, though i was born with mens eyes crawling on my skin like ants, following me through the grocery store. i was good, i was 5 the first time i was told to close my legs, sitting on the couch the same way as my brothers, told not to "distract" my brothers, it wasn't ladylike to be a child. i was good, i was 8 when i decided i hated skirts and dresses, and legs, mostly mine, mostly the way i felt naked in them- dresses, skirts, legs, and my own skin. i had to be modest, for it was a greater sin to be a temptress than tempted- i was 11 scratching at my skin as if i could peel off the oil of their ex-ray vision, i covered up to leave something to the imagination, i covered up because they wanted something to imagine. at 12 i was good and they started calling me a young woman, my body grew to attract different men, i had the hips of a woman and the knobby knees of a child, i was 14 when the first boy confessed, breath shaky with nervousness holding me, breathing me in like he was starving, like i was something to be consumed. surrounded by boys and men alike both making promises and eating me alive with the same mouths, and then i was 16 and one boy took it too far and didn't let me say no. LET me say no, because i was only 4 when the illusion of control was first shattered, and i knew i only chose what to do with my body because that day, a man was generous enough to decide i could. i was 18 when i first chose to sexualize myself- i finally gave them what they begged for, and the day they could no longer take it from me, when i stood in my own skin and met their eyes they could no longer rape me with, i was used up, i was no longer good.