We, battered, molested and assaulted,

abused and silenced.

We, with the secrets we keep,

passed down to our daughters as whispered warnings.

We, with our apologies we make in so many ways,

we create a new language.

We, with our bleeding bodies, aching cheeks, and sacrilegious skin,

forced into glass castles,

with fairytales,

short ceilings,

and narrow halls.

We, with our inconvenient emotions and loud voices,

told to abandon the angry, crazy woman,

Oh, but the beautiful boldness of her honesty.

Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, we become.

There is a fierceness in the way we transform the abuse,

as background noise to our lives.

The nature of being women.

We, the unshakeable trees bearing witness to generations of women who power through to find happiness in all the grossness and unjustness.

We, the daises growing in the cracks of sidewalks.

We, the waterfalls pouring our hearts out in all we do.

We, the rumbling on the rocks, with our weary shoulders and bulging bellies, always marching forward in the hopes one day we will understand our power in the way men already do.

The very things that make us look weak, are evidence of our strength.

As much as we are beaten, we rise up with life. We grow it, we become it.

Take up your power. You are Earth itself.

You see, there is a day we will take these wrongs, and birth something beautiful.