Work Ethic

When I tuck my shirt in,
I don't do it the way my mom taught me:
to properly fold a blouse,
but just remember from watching my dad every morning.
I don't learn from a traditional lesson,
but follow the example of what was considered strong
because who the fuck in this world is to say I can't have the power?

I have the power in my un make-uped face
and the ride of my professional pants
low on my hips.
I've said it before and I'll say it again,
I can't change the system unless I'm in the system,
but getting into your white straight man system
and buying into it
are two very distinct and different things.

It may not be that my anger is messy and screaming,
it may be that my outrage plays out
in how I do
all the work you ask of me just the way you ask me to,
but I finish it early and quickly
so that the majority of
my time you pay me for
is actually spent
teaching the women around me
and learning from them.
I keep this job and pay my bills and have you like me
by doing what fits in the rules
and completing the tasks you wrote up on that job description,
but I do my job in the world,
for myself and for my sisters,
by being strong and being subversive
and working equally with everyone around me.
I don't just talk
about feminism and social justice,
I perform it.
I didn't teach you that our injustices are equal
by giving you a sociological lecture pontificating the evidence against the possibility of hierarchical systems of oppression,
but I showed you by listening to your stories
and then telling my own.
I'm sorry her mom said
you were perfect except for being brown,
but just yesterday I heard that her parents love me
except I'm a woman.

I do this bureaucratic paperwork to make the world we live in spin around,
but once I make the copies and file them away,
I work on unspinning this backwards world,
and when I take my bathroom break,
I don't powder my nose,
I don't size up the woman in the mirror next to me,
and when I tuck in my shirt,
I do it the way my dad never taught me to--
because I am the embodiment of power--
you just can't see it yet.