Born

Born

We brought the light from our grandmothers eyes

The light our mother’s wombs held for us

Captured in every cell passed down through her pains

Voices of her grandmother’s soul in our veins

Echoing us into existence.

Song

Our lungs gasping for air

Heart pounding against our chests

To their song we were born.

Our skin meets the Earth

At the chorus

And we return our mothers bodies back to them

Merely borrowed for a time

Never owned

But forever scarred.

Forget

Amidst the harsh sounds of birth

And the cacophony of a world screaming

That we are less than human

Because we are female

And amidst our own screams for freedom

To be released from such a betrayal of life

Slips into a forgotten crevice

That song

Hear

But one day in the silence of scars his fingers left

Or when the army has departed from the battlegrounds

That are our bodies

And we are left to pick up pieces of cloth

That once made up our dignity

When our minds stop pounding after his bullets of words

Or at night when the stranger next to us is no longer familiar

When we are brought to our knees under the weight of injustice

We hear

That song.

Listen

Faint at first then louder

Then roaring against our ears they speak

All our grandmothers voices in unison

Yours, mine, that sister in her shadows

Our mothers, before they were who they’ve become

They speak…

Breathe!

You were born Woman.

The night holds no danger to your light.

The silence is no shield to your strength.

The women before you need you to live.

The women after you need you to thrive.

Rise and Be Born.