Have you ever worked really hard on a project and had your contribution go unrecognised? Or spoken up in a meeting only for someone to repeat your idea a little louder and take all the credit? Have you been told to avoid the word ‘we’ when answering questions in a job interview? Even though it’s perfectly possible to acknowledge a team effort and concisely highlight your particular role and achievements?
This poem is for you. And for me. With inspiration credit to
’s recent SoulCircle Rhythm note, and her writing-life-changing Ink and Flame course, and all of you who are reading this, who encourage me to do what I love every single day.I lost my voice four weeks ago. It’s still not completely back. But I need to stop editing this poem and so sharing it is a way for me to accept it as ‘good enough’.
This is Petals to stem the bloodletting.
Come, sit closer Close your eyes, just for a second. Can you hear it? The heartbeat of the pen, bleeding ink seeding pink scattered petals cross the page as a sage sheds her wisdom or the sun’s learned ray lights the way? It marks the day when these words came to life. For the rhythm of this scratching ink on paper morphs the vapour of my thoughts into the shapes no, the faces of my calling. Heed their warning. See the faces now, of women? We’ll not dim their light. We fight to hear their voices; hear their choices heard: protected, then projected for the world to know their name. So know this flame, it burns within it fuels my heartbeat, sets this rhythm. For as long as blood flows in me I will speak up with the women who speak truth to power. So hear me: when we say ‘we did this’, know that we mean business. One man’s ‘I’ should not deny our contribution, for the truth is plain to see by only opening your eyes: see the disguise of I? We all know it was we, or even she… But what of me, now? Who am I to idle by speaking of nuance when the room is soon to be consumed? This house on fire, while I write of semantics? If I stay quiet the man ticks every box claims our achievement and then locks the door we’ve seen it done before and so before we know what happened we are outside looking in watching him ‘win’? Well, let’s not linger, bleeding, here. Like my knife has its edge, so this poem is the wedge: it stems the hole in my soul through which I bleed out. This venesection: my rejection of the narrative of men so again, can you hear it? Stop. And listen. The gathering of those of us who’ve had enough now say ‘Time’s up’. When he says ‘I’ let’s not just roll our eyes, let it pass by. I know we’re jaded, generations of erasure tend to have just that effect, but to effect real change we cannot sit in silence. Silent rage cannot un-cage our right to be heard like a wing-clipped bird who hops and chirps then drops her perfect song, long-lost, now gone. So please, hold on to opportunity! His-story in perpetuity no more for it is our time to rise, now. Feel the power – plural – our. When just one speaks out they shout her down, dismiss her, say she misheard, say ‘don’t rock the boat’ and (note-to-self) ‘she’s trouble’. But the bubble in the cauldrons of our lineage fiercely flows: a river bridging past to present brings us strength. Our history knows that if they take us one by one then we may break but when we link our arms and sing the hard-won rights of women cannot be ignored. Our joined up might, our righteous rage will wage our war on words with words; our language ours to leverage. Petals on our page are words not scattered but laid down with care a prayer, that ‘fairly paid’ be more than fairytale; fair credit be ours to avail, and the heartbeat of this pen can finally rest. All bleeding stops, eventually. Can you hear it?
Share this post