By : Micaleb Lawrence
Not a hashtag in this world can save our lives but we’ve come so far, beating all systems setting us up for failure. We keep shouting even though they refuse to hear us. And if you’d rather hear my pain than comfort me through it, I will listen and watch for your reaction because, I took a self-defence class in hopes to defend my death because with you causing me pain, me staying alive only means I need it more than I initially had planned. I don’t choose to be alive. I just am and with all of that comes every scar I got from that day. I just put my self-defence to good use and look where it got me, suffering from the inside. Hoping that the next day will mean more than just one I have to get through.
These are the struggles of woman.
Of your mother, sister, wife, colleague.
I’ve met more woman broken by the actions of a man than I have met men who treat woman as Christ intended for Christians to treat the church. But some popes took it personally wouldn’t you say? The same kid who is suffering under the pope is being forced by the church into conversion therapy. According to his male abuser he is gay by choice. All these obstacles make you forget about bootcamp where you took your coursework seriously while forgetting to flirt with girls, instead you’d lose yourself in something that made sense and numbers that added up. Numbers that now add up to the most recent cases, as we’re caught up in our global pandemic, our doctors are dying. The frontline workers are losing themselves because this is not just a plague among their people. It’s a race they have to win before more people die and the richest decide our fate. Numbers are becoming names and our minds are fragile, so we might believe everything they say. But we? We need to love everything we are enough to keep fighting against injustices while wearing our masks. My people and I, we have come a long way and we won’t walk away from a fight because together we hold all the power and together, we give you yours. If you’re hesitant to help us you’re on the wrong side and if you happen to not see colour don’t defend your racism or homophobia just continue scrolling past the rainbows on your feed.
In comparison to what they like you see how much harder you have to work cause you’re a woman. A woman who nurtures and carries nations. They wonder why you are still present, why you never give up. But they don’t know that your place is more than being your husband’s wife or being your father’s daughter. You are someone, your maiden name remains the same because the power you hold is exceptional and battles you fight are yours to win and theirs to witness. That’s who you are, you’re the world and you’re a woman so as all these things happen protect yourself from the inside out as all the prisoners of this world do. Prisoners like you, captive to their beauty standards and victim to their torture, bleed from the inside out but continue building roads where generations to come can walk on because this is your world to work on.
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