Nice to meet you
Hi!
It’s nice to meet you
Do you come here often?
What’s your sign?
Wait, what time were you born?
Can I see your birth chart?
Not that one
I want to see a new one:
the one that is a map
The one that charts the pathways between every fibre of your essence,
aligns the molecules of your soul
That connects the rivers of passion and rage and sorrow
that flow through your connective tissue,
pouring through the generations,
filling your cup with everything you hold dear
The one that makes up your history
That speaks your great grandmother’s words from your mother’s mouth
Maps a family tree in your veins
As if every ancestor’s breath fills your lungs
and each heartbeat was in their honour
Your fingers pointing out to their stars,
once the twinkles in their eyes
When were you born?
Better yet, when did you come alive?
Alive to feel it, really feel it
Thank the Good Christian God™ that I’m alive right now
in this moment
What a privilege it is
to see the rise
The rise of the ones who have always risen
The rise of those who were higher than any of us anyway
The ones propelled upward from canons shot downward
Aimed at those who were already being buried
Aimed at those who were told they cannot fight back
Aimed at those downstream of the status quo
with the weight of the relentless machine kneeling on their necks,
crushing their windpipes,
erasing their lifeforce
Aimed right in their faces but told not to see it that way
What colour do you see?
When they tell you not to see colour
When every vote doesn’t count
and every life doesn’t matter
When they say it’s about life,
but not when it’s yours
Not when it’s mine
Not when it’s children being gunned down
and books being burned
Not when it’s mothers going septic
and rapists being acquitted
Not with the water left poisoned,
and the sisters left missing
And those meant to serve us taking our lives every day
Our future going up in putrid smoke
Deny, deny, deny
Not the right time
When did the life you know feel lost to you?
Me too
But I must ask you:
What is your rising sign?
Not that one,
but the sign of your rising
When did the thrill of the fight begin to call to you?
When did the rage burning in your guts finally boil over?
Spill onto the fire your ancestors lit for you
Sending smoke signals to your sisters
Like so many pyres from witches past
The injustice screaming its ugly taunts in the distance
Harkening every last one of us,
defiant as the machine turns on
When did you feel it?
The undeniable buzz
The electric connection
Like we all burst forth from the same womb
Like we all share the same purpose
Like we all charge from the same source
Share the same broken heart,
the collective disbelief
and the magnetic draw to will the rightness
back into being
Back where it belongs
As if life itself depended
on us
because it does
So, I have to know:
What’s on your playlist?
What will be the soundtrack to your capitol storm?
To score and underscore,
drown out their empty pleas
Hollowed by the promises of false freedoms
Hollowed by archaic protections that no longer apply to them
Hollowed by their violent inaction through decades of chances
Follow the distant hum of our battle drums
Growing louder with every girl told they are less than,
every person denied their very existence,
beating fiercely to the rhythm of our collective technicolor hearts
As we take matters into our own hands
As we stop letting them trample us
As we attack back
Because they tell you your voice doesn’t matter
Like you’re not saying the right things
Act as if they can’t hear the message
amidst the screaming crowds,
boots marching,
tanks rolling,
the wailing bodies thrown into the heap
The ones that begged for their lives
only to be told it’s not theirs to beg for
So we’ll do the begging
Demanding
Our chants tuned to the ones our grandmothers used,
shrill and impolite
Leather jackets and steel toe boots
paired with the F*** You Red lipstick
Saying those somehow radical words
we never should have needed again
This is yet another moment in history
We must show them the volume of our loud majority
Show them what exactly we are made of
Remind them that we made
what they are made of
And we will not go unheard
For it was vaginas who brought them into this world
And it’s vaginas who will vote them out
and reshape the Earth in our image
Birth it from the wombs of our fiery souls
into something they could have seen coming
if they just listened the first time
Welcome to the fight
It’s so nice to meet you
Jane Steward
Duncan