Little Pink Bottle by Olivia Jocson

Little pink bottle of “you shouldn’t walk alone at night”

and “fear is best carried clutched between your fingers.”

Little pink bottle of  “be aware of your surroundings” check underneath your car, pull down your smile, raise up your little pink bottle of

“This is just the way it is” of teaching women how to not get raped; the logic is lost on me.

Little pink bottle of “no means no” but “no” is lost in translation because he didn’t bother to

listen in the first place.

Little pink bottle of “it won’t happen to me” turned into

“it might happen to me” if I don’t have my little pink bottle of

I feel afraid in my own skin and I am suspicious of innocent people minding their own

business on the dark city streets of my city.

Little pink bottle of wanting to be invisible of wishing I was a man

of my heart rate pumping as fast as my legs when I feel footsteps on my shadow.

Little pink bottle of “will my daughter carry this same defense in the back pocket of her ripped jeans?”

Little pink bottle that my father gave to me when he realized there was no guarantee

that I could walk safely without that

little pink bottle clutched between two rings,

saying slowly in my head,

“please not me.”