And Ovid said "she asked for it"
she turned Tereus to lust on sight and caused him to **** her
over and over and over
the only control remaining to speak the truth.
a tongue turned phallus
that was to be cut off, castrated
to silence, make powerless -
Philomela subjugated
beneath the vile grunts of the patriarchal chorus
mumbling grumbling over the rumbling
of a revolution of women rising to dance, to shout, to sing
to bring Philomela from Hades to cascading waters of womanhood
extinguising the flames of the hell that is here.

Here in the he said - she said
in the legal loop holes
in the seems like
in the ridiculous pondering of legitimate ****
as if when Tess, at pitchfork, took off her clothes before Alec
that it could be consider seduction, romance.
The threat of violence - silence.

Here where we remember world cup victories but forget Nanking
hundreds, thousand of women violated and broken for sport
because **** is a weapon of war
because Lord knows bombs and bullet aint enough
Soldiers photographing rapes like snapshots to take home as souvenirs.
- the sadistic ******* who sexually assaulted, mutilated and murdered
daughter, sister, mother, grandmother
and then headed home to the ***** of the matriarch,
to hold their own teenage daughters in the arms that turned screams to silence.

Voices silenced.  
Vocabularly lost.
Women have come to fight silence with art
to speak in a language without words because there are not words
to tell of a hell that ------------------------

But when Toni Morrison told the truth
the truth in all its gorey graphic raw ugliness
the people tried to stick together the pages
to conceal the painful truth,
to build up pyres of life stories and watch them burn
The pen stamped underfoot into silence.

And Pa simply said "shut up and *** used to it"
and those words still echo now across the world
and there was noone to tell
nothing to be said - just the colour purple
and silence.

Silence is being broken
across this world women rise to tell, to share, to voice, to shout, to say, to sing

We've had enough, enough of being treated like dirt,
we've had enough enough of putting up with the hurt,
we've had enough enough of getting trashed from above,
us women have had enough -

we've had enough they say
of this vile hierarchial structure of **** that almost always favours the male
of arseholes like Galloway and Akin putting forth their perverse poisonous perceptions
of one in three women being ***** or beaten
of one in three women having to pick up the pieces and find a way to live
of one in three women feeling the weight of the silence

As the monologues echo in theatre stalls
as ***** taken to the streets both female and male
as men declare themselves feminists and walk the walk
the spirit of Philomela unites with her tongue,
the silence created by the threat of violence is cracked
the us and them mentality that allows us to hurt the other challenged
the once burned books have gone mass market
and we as a human race will no longer be told "to shut up and *** used to it"

We are standing as one
for the sake of the one
the every one in three women
one will billion rise

There was this kid once, who went on an adventure-
to Coborns...
(Let's get this straight, right now, this kid wasn't me,)
Following the gray cement pathway she walked,
But the kid had this thing about bugs...
She never did like them much, but she liked them
Even less squished on the sidewalk with guts-
Spewing all over.
So this odd little kid walked purposefully,
But stared at the ground, so as not to trample one
Of those nasty bugs with her relatively clean shoes.
Well, the one time she glanced at the glistening waters
With birds swimming atop, she heard the noise,
Felt the crunch, of a massive cricket.
She didn't have to see it to know what it was,
Every detail of the pancaked thing was etched
Into the bottom of her gorey tennis-shoed foot.
The rest of the way to Coborns, she felt the cricket's body.
It wasn't stuck to her shoe, she was quiet certain,
But the after-image in her mind wouldn't let
The feeling of the cricket out of her thoughts.

On the return trip home, this girl,
(who, just to re-iterate, isn't me), made sure
To stop looking down when she neared the place of
The squashing. And to this day, she still wont
Look down when walking to Coborns.