don’t look away.
every time an incident blows up,
the country awakens,
a slumbering dragon roaring to life.
regularly scheduled outrage.
suddenly, there are pithy commentaries,
scathing paragraphs,
streets overflowing with chants,
flickering candles at night vigils.
the flame falls in the darkness,
an enveloping cloak that
so often suffocates women.
oh, not the darkness of the night.
the darkness of the perpetrators.
this is my cue to wait for ‘not all men.’
why does that matter now?
this is about the women.
this has always been about the women.
the ones that were heard,
the ones that were not.
the ones that were discovered,
the ones that were erased.
the ones that were blamed,
the ones that were murdered.
murdered at the altar of politics,
of communal, racial, religious divides.
their names and faces blur into
meaningless statistics.
the world moves on,
uncaring, unfeeling, unyielding.
you do not have the luxury of being numb.
read the details. feel the keen injustice.
know what it is to have fear live
in the spaces between your bones,
to have keys pressed in the spaces
between your fingers.
a perpetually held breath.
do you know women trade incidents
like men trade collectible cards?
we tell each other stories of our
nightmares coming to life,
hoping that the other does not relate.
the other always does.