So Real

We Listened

This is my take on female empowerment, also one of my favourite poems I've written (TW, mentions of violence and sexual assault)

We listened when you told us to be quiet

Though there was nothing you could say that we hadn't heard before

We were quiet when you told us to listen

We've let you talk on and on and on

Fatalistic, pounding, crushing background noise

Although you still think you can do whatever you want

We will no longer stand by and watch ourselves bruise

You won't be quiet when we tell you to listen

But that doesn't mean we can't shout louder

We have a voice, we have a message

You can choose to ignore but still you will know

You tell us we are weak, but we're weak because you break us

Try to shatter a woman's soul into smaller pieces of herself

But you didn't see how we'd come together

Broken pieces of an incandescent whole

You tried to crush us, smash us like glass

Now these broken shards could draw your blood

You'd be right to think we're tired of the fight

But I will still bring every story to light

The violence and rape, the death and the blood

The inequalities, FGM, the police

The pain that becomes part of our hearts

Until you finally listen to what I have to say

There was a girl five miles away from me

Her throat was cut by a machete

Death on the hands of a boy not yet eighteen

Blood and tears, no lessons learnt

Another hundred women per year

I know three girl followed off the bus on the same day

They tell me about it like some grim cliché

All broken pieces of the same splintered whole

Together our broken we will bring

And be the biggest microphone

We'll call our message down the street

When we tell you to listen you'll be quiet

I'm tired of this fight that never seems to end

I'm tired of my anger being taken as hate for men

I'm tired of being told to smile

Being told I should know my place

I'm tired of being told my transgender sisters are not women

When they suffer just as much and more than some

I'm tired of being told to be quiet and listen

I have listened

We listened

Now you will listen to me