Female Rage Volume 2: a circle

Quiet the rage within you 

You know who you can show it to and who you can’t 

Even among your friends 

Can’t risk being too indignant or dramatic 

Half seen, half of the time  

But move on

Over and over and over and over again

Don’t repeat the same cycles 

In a world designed to be a repeating loop 

It’s your fault. 

Is it even true?

Don’t be too indignant 

Stand up again and again and again 

Don’t be too opinionated 

Be positive 

STAND UP 

Again and again and again 

Life is a circle they say

It’s a circle in colonialism and systematic racism too 

How beautiful that circle is

Repeating again and again and again

Repeating at the macro level 

And at the micro minute of my everyday

STAND UP 

HAVE HOPE 

KEEP GOING 

You can’t lose hope

You can’t be tired 

Keep going 

A 200 year long battle 

of body and spirit and ceremony 

Systemic racism can be quiet 

Can live in the kindness of your allies 

Live in your office and your classroom 

In your friends and your coworkers 

STAND UP 

You’re tired but they don’t know better 

Or they do and don’t care 

HAVE HOPE

Systemic racism can build a home in you

The house is haunted 

Creeps into your mind 

Sucks from your spirit

Tells you to be quiet 

The ivy spreading through 

Clinging to your legs 

STAND UP

Clenching around your heart

HAVE HOPE 

Budding in your lungs

KEEP GOING 

It’s invasive but they’ve been here so long nobody realizes 

On your home, your mothers, your grandmothers 

Don’t be too indignant 

Now the ghost is me