blue blanket

Still

There are days

When there is no way

Not even a chance

That I dare for even a second

Glance at the reflection of my body

In the mirror and she knows why

Like I know why

She only cries

When she feels like

She's about to lose control

She knows how much control is worth

Knows what a woman can lose

When her power to move

Is taken away

By a grip so thick with hate

It could

Clip the wings of God

Leave the next eight generations of your blood shaking

And tonight

Something inside me is breaking

My heart beating so deep

Beneath the sheets of her pain

I could hear every tear she cried

A year- a name

And a face I'd forever erase from her mind

If I could just like she would

For me

Or you

But how much closer to free would any of us be

If even a few of us forgot what too women in this world cannot

And I'm thinking

What the hell would you tell your daughter

Your someday daughter

When you have to hold her beautiful face

To the beat up face of this place

That hasn't learnt the meaning of stop

Stop

What would you tell your daughter

Of the womb raped empty

The eyes swollen shut

The gut too frightened to hold food

The thousands upon thousands

Of bodies used and abused

It was seven minutes of the worst kind of hell

Seven

And she stopped believing in heaven

Distrust became her law

Fear, her bible

The only chance of survival

Don't trust any of them

Bolt the doors to your home

Iron gate your windows

Walking to the car alone

Get the keys in the lock

Please, please, please, please, open

Like already you can feel that five-fingered noose around your neck

Two hundred pounds of hatred digging graves into the sacred soil of your flesh

Please, please, please, please, open

Already you're choking for your breath

Listening to the broken record of the defense

Answer the question

Answer the question

Answer the question

Answer the question, miss

Why am I on trial for this?

Would you talk to your sister

Your daughter

Your mother like this?

I am generations of

Sisters, daughters, mothers

Our bodies battlefields, war grounds

Beneath the weapons of your brothers hands

Do you know they found land mines in broken women's souls?

Black holes in the parts of their hearts

That once sang symphonies of creation

Bright as the light on infinities halo

She says

I remember the way love

Used to glow on my skin

Before he made his way in

Now every touch feels like a sin

That could crucify Medusa

Kali, Oshun, Mary

Bury me in a blue blanket

So God doesn't know I'm a girl

Cut off my curls

I want peace when I'm dead

Her friend knocks at the door

It's been three weeks

Don't you think it's time you get out of bed

No

The ceiling fan still feels like his breath

I think I need just a couple more days of rest

Please

Bruises on her knees from praying to forget

She's heard stories of Vietnam vets

Who can still feel the tingling of their amputated limbs

She's wondering how many women

Are walking around this world

Feeling the tingling of their amputated wings

Remember what it was to fly, to sing

Tonight she's not wondering what she would tell her daughter

She knows what she would tell her daughter

She'd ask her what gods do you believe in?

I'll build you a temple of mirrors so you can see them

Pick the brightest star you've ever wished on

I'll show you the light in you

That made that wish come true

Tonicht she's not asking you what you would tell your daughter

She's like deep in the Hell- the slaughter

Has already died a thousand deaths

With every unsteady breath

A thousand graves in every pore of her flesh

And she knows the war's not over

Knows there's bleeding to come

Know she's far from the only woman or girl

Who trusted this world no more than

Hands that trusted rusted barbed wire

She was whole before that night

Believed in heaven before that night

She knows she's not the only one

She knows she won't be the only one

She's not asking

What you're gonna tell your daughter

She's asking

What

You're gonna teach

Your son