it is one thing
to follow her into the dark

it is another thing
to borrow her fragmented words
and hold her in one hand
and a scale in another
and call it justice

but, by God
(whichever one you’d like to cite today
the kind one, the cruel one, and so on),

it is a whole different thing
to seize her by the neck
and rip the words from her throat
and twist them into cotton *****
and dip them into holy water
and force them back into her mouth
until she can no longer breathe
and no longer live and no longer exist
without drowning in a sense of helplessness
because we, the people, will always remember exactly how
you took your greed and shoved it into her mouth
and down her throat, until you stifled the cries of
‘my body, my choice’ with a book of myths and a man’s voice
weren’t you supposed to be our voice?
what was this all for? was the money so loud that
you could not hear the echoes of pro-choice?
our rage—will it be worth those thirty silver coins?