We sat under a canopy of stars
Perfectly displaced in the Western Tennessee night
Where I felt all at once overcome by its beauty and weighted with its story
As you leaned across the table
Oblivious to my existence
And broke the hum of sweet, evening air
Disrupting the cicadas’ lullaby
With your gleeful screech of
“YOU PUSSY BITCH!”
I didn’t know you
But I knew I could not remain silent
When I lifted a gaze that until then had always rested low
To make myself small
To hold space for ignorance to feel safe
To passively agree
And my eyes met the only other woman’s at the table
Exhausted, I sighed
While you blindly persisted in your revelry
Bereft of any reverence to the power of pussies like ours
The ones that have endured a millennia
Of insufferable, miraculous agonies
Of being split open for flowers to pour from between our legs
Of baptizing sheets and soil and skin with the holy waters of our eyes
Reaching the heavens with our desperate howls
Of birthing every. single. first. and last. breath
On the body of a Mother
Who fills our lungs with life
Our eyes with magic
Who bathes us in Her veins
Providing shelter with Her bones
To be degraded and mocked
The insurmountable power of it all belittled
I looked you in your eyes
And for myself
For the sister whose gaze could hardly meet, yet mirrored my own
For every single woman before and after me
I sang from the depth of my womb a prayer
When I told you “NO”
You ascended upon me
As well as the other men at the table
Those that thought like you
Were blind like you
Scared like you
And you barked and snarled and sneered like wild hyenas
Attempting to submit my gaze back down, below your belt
But I
With my prayer and powerful pussy
I sat unwavering
And slowly
One by one
You all left the table, unable to bury me
And the cicadas resumed their lullaby
Under the canopy of stars in the Western Tennessee night
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