sidewalks

sidewalks

http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=15258

as my ears tell my brain her story
my head is light
my breath is thick
my blood is quick
my fingers tight
if you kill her, she will die
if you kill her, i will die
and so she will die. and all the little pieces of us that lived in her, that still are her,
will die as well.
and her blood, and her bruises, are mine
frozen in time
and in our fear, and our purple skin, we are one.
but if she was a martyr, she was a martyr to her makeup
so sitting on the sidewalk
to living as she liked
and if we’re making martyrs to sidewalks,
tell me what have we become
tell me what in us is numb
tell me what we’re running from—
girls wearing makeup?
are the monsters in our closets so ordinary?
and so ridiculous?
i swear to god, if we feared the female any more in this place,
and if we knew what we feared,
that with all the contempt and all the rage
we are like children, afraid
of female monsters in our bedrooms
wearing lipstick and black lace,
we’d kill ourselves, if no one else
and drip our own blood
on the sidewalks
where the girls used to sit.

and for the record, samira, it didn’t “get out of their hands”. the 3 of them beat her with hoses for 2 hours, didn’t stop until she stopped breathing. don’t tell me they didn’t mean for anything to happen to her.