Female Solidarity

I have arrived here
a place with no headlines
no leader
no creed

I have arrived here
after flailing near the canyon’s edge
flirting with sharp rocks
and thousands of feet
whipping up to
meet
my inky black sorrow

yes familial wrinkled hands
of my own kin
have betrayed me
shocked me into forgetting
the unspoken

Yet I still arrive here anyway
again and again

I have arrived here
despite the disgusting sights
the vile night visions
I was born with
molded to
and arranged to marry

I have arrived here
because of those soft flickering
female tongues who dissolve
judgment like sugar in water
and bite back the advice
that’d be easy to give

I have arrived here
with those women who
have bathed me in their tears
tears like golden sunshine
through the rain
seeing their divinity even in their pain

I arrive here again and again
because my grandmother
pounded out her anger, her sorrow, her joy
on piano keys
while my mother
spent every waking day
and many dreams
picking at the locks
on the chains
wrapped around her by society

I am arriving to this place
every time
women speak freely of a
multi-gendered reality
gently careful of the wounds
we all carry
loving men
loving women with ease

I arrive hereeach time my sister/midwifepartakes of women's pains and joysin giving life:the ultimate arrival

I have arrived
simultaneously
feeling threatened, powerful
imbued with choices
still processing
raging
transforming the anger
built from living under the
dusty tombs
of words like cunt/bitch/fag/hysterical

I arrive here each time
I reach over the ledge
into sacred spaces
infinite minutes
reflecting
my sisters, lovers, mothers image
back to them

I arrive here each time
She reaches deep
into her pocket of true thought
and drops each word like a
crystal into my heart

This is the place where I have arrived

~ Jenn Siegel