Resistance: A Song for My Sisters in C Minor

in the silence of dark matter
a litany of voices struggle to rise to the top
voices muted by death, physical, emotional, and psychic abuse
words strangled by hands with evil imprints, misogynist intentions
stories mutilated and raped til they become unrecognizable
unreadable and reconstructed by lies, deceit, and produced in remote
locations like so many snuff films for a wicked and voyeuristic audience—
those responsible for unsolicited penetration, for the crimes of passion
that lead to the disappearance of sound, the screams of little girls and women
muffled by swollen dicks and clenched fists of fury and hate
rarely make it to trial or serve sentences fitting their offenses
but the memories of those harmed are buried in vacant lots, cold case files,
in cemeteries of broken bones, broken lives, broken hearts
left forgotten in the basements of museums, in unmarked graves
in history books offering no apology, that refer to our bodies and behavior
as deviant, pathologize our existence, ‘other’s’ our presence, marginalize our experiences—
in the discourse of deception, in the murkiness of dreams comes a courage that roars
it is the forgotten songs of the struggle for liberation that our history would suppress
it is the cries of women and girls who dare to say no to racist, sexist, and class oppression
in the silence of dark matter, our voices will rise and we will be heard
listen up