While I've been writing SF
My 13-year-old daughter is writing about girls, feminism, Afghanistan, DRC, and ICE detention centers
My daughter just shared a poem with me. She has not even once mentioned that she writes, he has kept that quiet. I am in a disconnect here. Just four years ago it was Legos on the floor, now it is about Human and Women’s Rights in Afghanistan, the DRC, and ICE detention centers. She’s writing about much more serious stuff; I’m just trying to tell a story. Wow. I asked her permission to post in here and she gave it to me, so here it is. I’m just floored.
“It’s not important”
It’s not important as you say
But every night a little girl is crying silently wishing she’d be in a grave
Carrying wounds, fear, and anger alone in a maze full of cruelty, shame, and hate.
What your saying is Feminism isn’t important so you say
That women should cook, clean, and please the male all day.
While their dreams get caught in their minds what they want to be what they want to achieve.
In Afghanistan women are forced to shrink their dreams into their heads because saying them out loud could be a threat—
A threat against everything they have.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Women live in fear every day protecting their children in their arms
Not knowing when it will be you who will suffer and be the next.
The next Victim to be forced something so traumatic you never asked for.
Not knowing when you will be the next battlefield.
And everywhere in this world there is a place where women are told
“This was your fault”
“What did you wear?”
“You will have this heir”
No.
No Woman, child, and human life deserves this act of cruelty.
In America in any sort of U.S. Immigration and Customs of Enforcement
Detention centers Women, children, and teens are testing positive for pregnancy.
Sitting in feared rooms their screams were silently ignored.
Forced to be with the enemy.
Forced with a trauma they didn’t ask for.
Forced that their care is being denied Forced into miscarriages.
But still, after everything we still rise.
And still here you stand saying “its not important” “it doesn’t matter”.
But it does matter.
It matters that kids learn fear before they know how to spell their names.
It matters that women are being tortured every day without a say.
It matters that children grow up thinking pain is normal.
Feminism is not about being better than the male but it is about equality that we are being seen not just for our bodies but for who we are.
And maybe someday History won’t be ink-written in the blood of woman and children
And Kids will grow up hearing.
“You are safe”
“You are loved”
“You are special”
“You are worthy”
And no one absolutely no one should make you feel unworthy.
-Aurelia Evelyn Gallant.