Sometimes
A woman is an island
Steadfast amid the violence
Of salt water and storm cloud
Eyes ever focused
Where the sky caresses the sea
Kissed all over by the ebb and flow of waves
Dancing with moontides
Volcanic at times
Worn and weathered and wiser
As beautiful at sunrise as sunset
As much a force as nature herself
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I love watching the women with fire in their veins
The girls with Punky Brewster profiles
They enter with energy so big the room feels small
Laughs that ring out above the rest - distinctive and full bellied
They refuse to be shamed by the PTA moms
Not allowing their messy edges to take away from their contributions
They embody the revolutionary girl that Nikita Gill wrote rules for
Standing up for themselves and others
Accepting no excuses for bad behavior
They are often truth tellers slicing through mass delusions
Magic makers manifesting dreams into reality
Only ever competing with themselves
Chin high and eyes sharp
They are goddess and girl
Witch and woman
Scorching or blessing the ground they walk
In equal measure
Giving no fucks and taking no shit
As they say "yes, and" or "hell, no"
Fierce and joyous and unapologetically free
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Thunder rattles behind her ribs
Lightening arcs from her tongue
She is storm clouds
Bringing steady rain to parched earth
Raging winds to clear the way
She is elemental
Wild and raw and rare
Her smile crepuscular
Her love blisteringly radiant
I live to study her meteorology
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I am the fourth daughter to do it alone
Independence and survival are in my DNA
Only child to a single mother
Only granddaughter amongst the cousins
Only kid on my block
I have lived in comfortable aloneness most of my life
Do not believe I do not get lonely
I know how to remedy loneliness
Trusted family
Tribe
Are always a keystroke or "hello" away
I'd prefer to have a partner
To help me raise and support my children
But not at the cost of my independence
My independence is foundational in my peace
If I cannot retain my independent spirit
I cannot sustain my sense of self
I need a partner who walks alongside me
Who understands that I need to run in my wildness
Who does not try to domesticate me
Into something less than myself
Aloneness is not absence or lack
It is the space where I meet myself
It is the door to my Narnia
The place where unfettered dreams thrive
Where words waltz in ballgowns and tails
Where stories bloom from rich soil
Where I sit in conversation with discomfort
Where I sit in conversation with my gods
It is the garden of my delights
And it is as precious to me as air
How do I manage alone you ask
I understand that I'm never really alone
I'm as alone as I choose to be
I'm helped as much as I choose to ask for it
It is not as perfect or simple as these stanzas may imply
But the essence of my truth is here
Simplified
Distilled into a comprehensible version
Of my vast and complex reality
A demonstration of shifting perspective
Being alone carries so much oppressive connotation
I choose to experience it as a necessary liberation
Allowing me to navigate life by my own north star
Inspiring me to never lose sight of myself again
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“I am done,” is the quietest, most power-filled sentence in a woman’s lexicon.
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What I'm thinking is:
This is hard shit.
That sometimes grabbing that fact by the throat and screaming in its face is necessary from time to time.
Sometimes sitting in the shadow of that truth is required when our spirits are tired and our hearts so broken.
And when we're done, we rest. We breathe. And we rise and fight some more.
Because we're mothers.
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Women!
Do not center your lives around men
Pleasing
Appeasing
We are not the prey for their predator
Though some argue nature made it so
We are Medusa's progeny
Serving oleander sweet tea
And Aqua Tofana cocktails
We carry the legacies of Lilith
Hecate and the Morrigan
Skywoman and Diana of the Hunt
In our bones
We are born with cunning woven into our shadows
Placed there by the midwives and wise-women
Kitchen witches and herbalists
Shaman and priestesses
Who came before us
We have our own form of politics
Whispered around washing wells and sewing circles
Book clubs and coffee tables
We don our poison rings and hat pins
Let them think our docility safe
While we keenly observe and note and remember
It is time to end the war waged upon our bodies
The raping of our spirit
The subjugation of our gender
We are the gateway of life
We break ourselves open through blood and pain
To do the Goddess's work of creation
Too long have we allowed the world to think us
Weak
Helpless
Foolish
Simple
Incapable
We must remind the world of our strength
Boudicca was beaten and her daughters raped
And in her rage she waged war against Rome
Joan d'Arc stood against the English and the Church
A God-touched, heretic, peasant child whose heart would not burn
Harriet Tubman survived the travesties of slavery
Another God-touched woman who delivered 70 other souls to freedom
And we know there are so many more like them
Though we may not find our names etched in history
We are no less powerful than those who are
Our lives are OUR CHOICE
We are not chattel nor trophies
We are creation gifted autonomy
It is our divine right to wield our lives as we see fit
Let them vilify us as
Succubi
Mad women
Uppity bitches
And cunts
We know we are
Goddesses
Priestesses
Witches
And warriors
We are exhausted
We are fed up
We are wrathful
The Divine Feminine rises
The world is set ablaze around us
But we are not tied to the pyre
We choose to look the world dead in the eye
And dance while it burns
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Birthing a new world is painful
Shifting a paradigm is tectonic
Daughters,
We do not just choose The Bear
We are The Bear
We are the Wild Mother
We are gifted with the power of creation
We are skilled in navigating grief
We are aligned with the cycles of life
Daughters,
We are the builders of community
We are the storytellers
We are the lore keepers
We are the heart and the hearth
We are the fire keepers
We are the fire
It's time to build and burn
In equal measure
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I cannot be a human today
Let alone a woman
I am a raw exposed wound
Showered in salty
Reminders of the abuses
We have already endured
And I am unmade
-gws
Among my dark tresses
Magic is sprouting
So many threads of silver tinsel
Adorning my head like glittering filaments
Filling my hair with starlight
-gws
Words Wishes and Wisdom 