by Diane Elayne Dees
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| Taylor Swift attends the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards. PHOTO: |
Publicly acknowledge your peers
and show pleasure in their creations.
Make little girls happy at every opportunity.
Everywhere you go, stock the food bank
for a year, and send emergency money
to our states before the government
can even fill out the forms.
Show women and girls how to take
ownership of their own lives.
Show little girls that tears and rage
and poetry and making money
and red lipstick and ass-kicking
are all feminine pursuits.
Don’t cheat your vendors, defraud
your customers, or insult your fans.
Don’t incite violence wherever you go,
and don’t endanger the lives of others
because they are black, brown, female,
government officials, or journalists.
Don’t sexually abuse anyone,
don’t pretend you don’t know
anyone or anything connected to you,
don’t threaten people.
And do whatever it takes to guide
us out of this Cruel Summer.
and show pleasure in their creations.
Make little girls happy at every opportunity.
Everywhere you go, stock the food bank
for a year, and send emergency money
to our states before the government
can even fill out the forms.
Show women and girls how to take
ownership of their own lives.
Show little girls that tears and rage
and poetry and making money
and red lipstick and ass-kicking
are all feminine pursuits.
Don’t cheat your vendors, defraud
your customers, or insult your fans.
Don’t incite violence wherever you go,
and don’t endanger the lives of others
because they are black, brown, female,
government officials, or journalists.
Don’t sexually abuse anyone,
don’t pretend you don’t know
anyone or anything connected to you,
don’t threaten people.
And do whatever it takes to guide
us out of this Cruel Summer.
Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbooks, Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books), The Last Time I Saw You (Finishing Line Press), and The Wild Parrots of Marigny (Querencia Press). Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world. Her author blog is Diane Elayne Dees: Poet and Writer-at-Large.