To all the men who have objectified me,

You’re so interested in the shape of my lips, you’re not listening to what’s coming out of them. The pictures my words and syllables paint against the backdrop of your blasé silence do nothing to catch your eye or ear as you picture my body tangled in your sheets. Please stop playing dress up with my smiles, stop imagining them curving around your best jokes and expanding to embrace your bad habits. I am not a specimen to be examined, or a piece of art to critique or even a snack to fulfill your late night cravings.

I am a person.

Do you remember what those look like?

They have big eyes that notice when yours wander, and mouths for saying words like “no” and “yes” and “let’s talk about it” as well as all kinds of things in between. They walk and talk and act smart because they are. Do you remember when you liked people because they were people? Because they surprised you or understood you or made you laugh? Or have you always looked at other people as a source of utility, an economical chart of gains and losses and the law of diminishing returns? When you look in my eyes do you see numbers and investment portfolios instead of sparkles and hints of brown and gold in a sea of green?

Why don’t you try looking around?

See where we are. See the sunshine and the leaves in the wind and see how people twist and turn and manhandle their bodies into unnatural shapes just to fit themselves into backwards perspectives. Do you want to be one of them?

We’re on earth. Earth: blue, green and brown and filled with people who are not you. People who are not here to serve your needs. People who exist outside of your selfish little stratosphere, out of range of your desperate clawing desires.

People who are people, and not pieces of meat.

So stop picking your teeth with the bones of this conversation. Stop using precious minutes of your life to pretend I am an object you can pick up and play with until you’re bored, until you’re ready for your next train of thought to arrive.

You can leave. You can mutter to yourself about girls who try too hard, girls who aren’t worth your time. You can shake your head, belittling a human whose name you barely remember just because you felt they gave you too much to think about and not nearly enough of what you wanted.

Or you can sit up. You can notice something besides yourself for the first time in your small, angry little life. You can remember where you are. How lucky you are, how lucky we all are to be on this imperfect planet just the right distance from the sun and moon and millions of stars to keep us from going extinct. You can suck in a deep breath of air that doesn’t belong to you but that you get to borrow. And you can talk to a person. A real, live person, with valid opinions, views and experiences all their own. You can wonder at all the beauty that was one word, one look, one genuine sentence away. Yes, you can talk to another person.

You never know. You might even like it.

Sincerely,

A Person