I’m a lesbian
because I can install
a garbage disposal
and don’t like
being called a cunt.

I am a whore
because I like
my body, sex, and
am totally comfortable
talking about it.

I am a second-class
woman because
I refuse to reproduce.

I am bossy and bitchy
and pushy and stuck-up
and a know-it-all for
being well educated,
articulate and successful.

I am a murderer
because I chose
what was best
for my body
and that child’s life.

And I deserve
every ounce of abuse
because I dared
step into a manly
manipulated world.

Tamara Fricke is the 2010 co-winner of the Gertrude Claytor Award of the Academy of American Poets and is previously published by The Lyon Review, Meat for Tea, Attack Bear Press Poetry Vending Machine, Whisper and the Roar, We Will Not Be Silenced, and has been included in a number of compilations.  Her poetry chapbook Our Requiem was released in 2014.  She lives in Springfield, MA, with an ungrateful cat, where she writes grants professionally.