I bought the banned book
and painted my nails in various colors of the rainbow.
I wore the denim jeans with my favorite sneakers
and put on the bright red lipstick.
I laughed loud and unforgivingly
and took up space in the world.
I held the hands of my sisters as everything around us burned
and decided every day was a chance for a little act of rebellion.
I am a woman,
Who refuses to have my breath trampled out by the boots of men who have never walked a day in my shoes,
who have never felt that they were inadequate solely because of their gender.
I am a woman,
Who refuses to sit idly by in a pink dress.
And let men govern what I am capable of doing with my body,
because this is rape at a federal level.
This is the world standing by and watching the Man bend us over and take from our bodies with the backing of an entire country.
I am a woman,
Who refuses to turn her back on my sisters and whisper to them that as long as we behave they will love us,
because we should not settle to be muted to be able to find love,
we should not settle to have our rights strung up above our heads and told we are not worthy of them.
I am a woman,
and this is my body refusing to be told how it must be seen and how it must be heard.
I took a gulp
and swallowed the words.
But even the ice in the glass
couldn't soothe the burning as it went down.
My belly swelled from the fire within
and, before I knew it, the flicker of a flame became an inferno.
My body consumed in its combustion,
spreading like wildfire and reducing everything to ashes.
You looked on in such awe.
But, what did you expect would have happened?
Did you really think you could trample my embers into dust?
I have always held the flame,
to burn this world to ash,
to fight back,
to be a beacon of light in the darkness.
I just never thought I would have to use it.
To set fire to this world and watch it crumble.
Reducing this broken, rotted country down to the ground,
until it's nothing more than ash blowing in the wind.
Danielle grew up in Northern Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C. She is an avid reader and dabbles in photography and writing in her free time. She has three dogs who she adores and currently lives in Colorado where she enjoys playing tourist in her new city and spending time with family.
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