No Thank You

“Put a smile on your face, beautiful”, yelled the construction worker, moments before the other random bystander reached in my direction asking “You gone put my number in there?”. All within the half mile walk to the station by my house, I was slapped with a smattering of unwanted, unsolicited, and unappreciated commentary. My frustration began with the nerve of a man telling me how I should hold my face in order to appear more pleasing in his sight. This frustration was capitalized by the audacity of a man telling me that I should place his number into my phone, on the basis of, that’s just what he wanted. It’s as if, because a man finds me physically attractive, that his bargaining power increases, while mine never existed in the first place. I am grateful that I have been able to walk through this world with a face that feels inviting and a body that’s light. However, I do not understand the whisper of a moment when my humanity temporarily paused while a man covers me with his irrevocable advances, and I never will.