The men are angry.
Poor patriarchy.
The Women are angrier.
I promise.
Not loud enough for you?
Listen closer.
We are the hiss
beneath the door.
The tongue
between your teeth.
The little red warning
you mistook for lipstick.
We are fire-breathing Dragons
with our claws painted pink.
We are silk over steel.
Lace over knives.
Perfume over gasoline.
We are the pretty little thing
you were foolish enough
to underestimate.
And we are done
making ourselves smaller
so your ego can feel enormous.
I strayed from my Feminist roots.
I grew tired
of the infighting,
the purity tests,
the politics of who was
Feminist enough
to belong.
So I wandered.
I looked away.
I thought perhaps
I had misunderstood the war.
Then the world
showed me its teeth.
Social.
Political.
Economic.
The slow tightening
of the noose.
The old laws
wearing new lipstick.
The old violence
learning new vocabulary.
And suddenly,
I remembered.
Oh, how I remembered.
The rage was never gone.
It was sleeping.
And now
it has opened its eyes.
We are not asking
to be understood.
We are not asking
to be palatable.
We are not asking
permission
to be angry.
Anger is not a character flaw.
It is a flare
shot into the darkness.
It is the smoke alarm
after the house has been burning
for generations.
It is the primal animal
inside the Woman
who finally realizes
the cage was never Sacred.
Sovereignty is.
So let us be clear:
We will not be silenced.
We will not be erased.
We will not soften the blade
to make our wounds
more tolerable
for the hands that made them.
We will not smile
while you sharpen
the knife.
We will not thank you
for loosening the chain
you should have never
put around our throats.
We have swallowed
enough.
Now,
we spit fire.
Let the men be angry.
Let them stomp.
Let them rage
against the changing of the world.
Let them discover
what it feels like
when the thing they assumed
would always obey them
finally grows teeth.
Because we are not
their daughters
waiting for permission.
Not their wives
waiting to be chosen.
Not their mothers
waiting to be thanked.
Not their Muses.
Not their vessels.
Not their good girls.
Not their quiet girls.
Not their convenient girls.
We are the Women
who survived the burning.
And darling,
you should have known better
than to leave survivors
with matches.
We are Medusa
after the gaze.
Lilith
after the exile.
Kali
after the battlefield.
The Witch
after the pyre.
The Dragon
after the village
thought it had slain her.
We are what comes back
when the story says:
The End.
We are the hand
turning the page.
We are the ink
bleeding through it.
We are the Woman
rewriting the fucking ending.
And if you hear a hiss
in the dark,
don’t mistake it
for fear.
It is the sound
of a Woman
remembering her name.
It is the sound
of every silenced daughter
finding her voice.
Every erased Woman
finding her record.
Every discarded girl
finding her teeth.
Every generation
that was told to endure
finally answering:
No.
Not anymore.
We are not here
to make patriarchy comfortable
while it dies.
No mercy shall be shown.
We are here
to witness its death
with our eyes open.
Lipstick on.
Boots laced.
Hair wild.
Chin lifted.
Fire in the lungs.
Venom on the tongue.
And a thousand years
of rage
coiled beneath the skin.
The men are angry.
Poor patriarchy.
The Women are angrier.
And this time,
we remember
exactly who the fuck we are.
