Sisters: my veins drain into the sand.
My grave exists on wood.
My eyes close.
The crows pick at my womb; my brain.
Each nail tattoos my blood
into my bones.
My dying started long ago;
it started in my youth,
when Teacher told us
boys pull our pigtails,
shove us down on playground pavement
to show their love.
It started in high school,
where bare shoulders blinded boys
from their books.
And now we are twenty.
Now men's fingers pull us into the dark.
Now the alley concrete burns.
Now a suit and tie
asks if his defendant
could see your breast and thigh.
One out of every three;
if we escape their claws
we do so narrowly.
If we flee when they call,
we risk the slice of a knife
or an exit wound
or an asphalt tomb.
Whistles peel at our skin,
the wolves to our moon.
My body is a temple.
I open my womb
to expel all who intrude:
wrinkled politicians with withered pens,
with legalese, God's pharmacists,
the filthy, forceful tongues of men
who chain my worth to fertility.
I drive them from my holy rooms
with whips of cords.
My body is limp on these boards.
My skin is an ossuary
for relics women will soon possess.
It is easy for me to die.
I bleed for my Chinese sisters,
slain before they speak;
for my Indian sisters,
doused with acid,
stolen while they sleep;
for my Saudi sisters,
given a warden,
kept from their own streets;
for my American sisters,
losing their bodies
to others’ strict beliefs.
I bleed, I bleed;
come, stand in the scarlet mud.
Come, bathe your feet,
wash your hands
in the dregs of my end;
come, purge unwanted seed.
Come, drink of my last breath,
women who wear veils,
women who sell ***.
The crows circle,
the vultures too--
I smell of death.
I am not weak.
I will not forgive them;
they know just what they do.
Now, my slaughtered sisters.
Now, my survivors.
Set down your stones.
Take the nails from my feet,
plunder my bones.
Wear them as amulets.
In three days,
I will rise
and forge weapons from your cries.