To the women before me

Thank you
for clearing the branches off the trail,
for wiping down the table before I sat down to eat,
for flushing the floater down the toilet even though it wasn’t yours,
for speaking up when something wasn’t right,
for thinking of others without sacrificing any part of yourself,
for showing them all that you could do so that the same would be expected of me.

Screw you
for playing into stereotypes because then they were projected onto me,
for acting less intelligent than you are,
for just going along with things,
for settling,
for always buying what they are selling,
for making thinness your greatest achievement.