So j wrote this tonight, I'm not a poet but it seemed something I wanted to say, all feedback on improving it welcome!

[murasaki]

What is it to be a woman?
Is it our faces, our spaces
That you want to colonise, and why?
We bleed, and need
An acceptance that this is ours
Not yours. You haven't spent the hours
Hiding, panicked, scared
A slave to your hormones, unprepared
You have the privilege
But want to join our village.
WHY?
To tell us that you do it better than we do
We don't get what we should do
Other than be ourselves
We are individuals, not a mass
And you are not us

I like it. ♥️

I like it. I’ve thought a lot through all this about how clear it is that transwomen have no idea how it feels to be a woman and the monthly rise and fall of hormones in that strange circle that moves from stomach ache of days 1-4 to building desire to the “every man looks so sexy today, I want them all!!” of days 12-14, then the slow drying which ends, for me, in a sudden urge to clean the house and murder DH while eating piles of chocolate, which in turn is erased by a headache for a day and then the blood comes and stomach ache follows and I begin again.

We are individuals, not a mass
Yes, we are.
So what's the whole we hide panicked and scared?
Maybe you do.
I don't. Not everyone does.
I'm not a slave to my hormones either.
Sure, they piss me off sometimes, but theyre not the boss of me.
All feedback on improving it welcome - OK, how about listening to your we are individuals not a mass line and expanding on that?

Thanks - I think there is a good point re expanding on the mass line, I will think about that, it's a first draft but you raise some very good points in that I inadvertently did what I was complaining about!

You have the privilege
But want to join our village

This reads as rather contrived. What is 'our village'?

I think you are a poet. Maybe not perfect, but billion times better than i could do. Righto, off to write a Limerick.

Constructive criticism is useful, but hostile comments are pointless.
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You haven't spent the hours/ Hiding, panicked, scared strikes a chord with me and will with many other women too. I can still remember the shock and panic of my first period, when I thought I must have an internal injury. And many other times of flooding, blood stains, terrifying pain. The plunging misery of PMS. That certainly felt like being a slave to my hormones.

As you say, weare individuals, not a mass, so your poem will notplease everyone.

I like the rap rhythm, and the length. When you’ve said what you want to say, you don’t need to elaborate. I like your strong image of colonists with their big homes wanting to take over poorer people’s little villages too. You could add more but the poem doesn’t requie more.