There are times I can't write
Because I'm trying to create the world I want
Through the power of my speech.
The pressure is building
With collective grief
There are days when I can dance the rage
Through the moving of my body
And there are days
Where I stay stuck and staring.
I've been following the red thread
Back to Asherah
In the sands of the desert
Where the priests tried to hide her
Made us swallow the lie
That we needed to be punished
That our Mother never was
Never loved us.
And their god sounds just like my rapist
When he says
Do as I command
Or I shall shower you with my vengeance.
And now I need you to understand
They don't only lurk in the dark
They are the ones who bought
And bartered for a body
Of a stranger
Or through the marriage ceremony
On the nights she is
Too tired
Too drunk
And he thinks he has the right because
Man
Came
First.
There are buildings in the cities
Where children play with the men who
Violated their mothers
And in our bones we remember
When lineage came
Through the female line
Before we were shut behind doors
And policed
So each man would know which was "mine"
When everybody knows
A seed thrown to
The wind
Buried in the earth of She
Who Births All
Belongs to nobody.
I've been praying to Mary
Because I think she understands
As she holds the broken body
Of the man who said
"There is no sin, just forgetting you are holy."
And it's taken me this long to find the words
Behind a church
Designed to hurt
And I wonder how much more I can take
Of these body tremors and tears
So I pray another time
To a Mother who hears.
- Jenny Wren
