"CLAP, DEAR!"
Editor Underground
Roukia Ali
Women never begin as human beings.
They are earth and clay, molded into sin.
Apples bitten, and boxes opened, sweet syllables
Dripping like honey from lips, kisses of venom.
Wars are started over her beauty, and won over her claim.
You are the witch’s cackles as they engulfed her head in flames.
The red moon spilled across the cross and bled ashes from her grin.
The flames licked around her outstretched arms like wings.
Although her incantations melted, the curse was unleashed.
You are the deluded housewife who snapped because she did not
Brew the tea right, clinging until her fingernails cracked against door
Edges and tore the yellow wallpaper to shreds, screaming and kicking,
Until they strapped her to the bed, and made her nerve endings lightning.
You are women they flung overboard for fear of bad luck.
Thunder shattered the plank as they plunged like pearls into the sea.
Gazes desperate anchors to be pitied, but they would not be reeled back.
It is the sirens with seawater voices that do not forget that.
You are the women in pantsuits standing behind the protest signs,
Refusing to be legislated away even if in the parliament buildings,
They are burning the ballots for their cigarette lights,
And the lanterns they will keep at the bedsides of the surrogates.
Pushing children from the crevices of broken dreams and decency,
They will not make picket-fence dreams out of your screams forever!
Because you were queens who laddled body parts into the laps of eager
Emperors, kings, and generals for supper, who exchanged bedsheets
For handshakes, who suffered every heartbreak from broken open thighs
And blood ties, veils draped over frantic eyes, hands shackled by rings,
Pink taxes and marred houses branding disappointment upon their births.
First and foremost, they were women, so they would be punished.
Until they were claimed as mothers, servants, nurses, lovers–-
The price of their existence were wine marks stricken across faces for tethers.
But crowns were cradled like salves; nothing soothes like a seat of power.
Women begin as anonymous thinkers, publishing manuscripts and letters
Under their husbands’ names. Peering up through mountains of
Wristwatches, slacks, and briefcases at their reflections in the glass ceiling.
In the breakrooms, after having been denied the raise, they apply their lipstick.
Red like their smashed knuckles, women are not cowed by damaged skin.
They come from a genealogy of the rageful, the insane, and the broken.
Women begin mocked for their skirts,
And scolded for laboured dirt on their faces.
Too loud for opinions, but not loud enough for the gaze.
They begin with swords swallowed, masquerading as tongues.
Yet, rusted away at the mere answer of "no,” undefended at the stand,
Lobbed with insults for trying to ruin the promising young man.
In every generation, they tried to destroy you.
Each time, the patriarchy is pushed forward on a plate.
"Eat it," they tell you. "Lest you starve."
You swallow, knowing hell is for dessert.
The women applaud.