IF YOU DIDN'T SCALE MY WALLS

IF YOU DIDN'T SCALE MY WALLS

When we drew the boundary lines

You took our shoes and marched across

For everything we set aside

You legislated to accost

And all our lists and prizes

Every space and word

Crumbled at and yielded to

The politics of the absurd

If you didn't scale my walls

They wouldn't wear the crown of glass 

if I hadn't learnt the hard way that 

gravel tells me more than grass

If you didn't rage and squirm and plead, watch them day and night; 

Spraying them with threats & rainbows, leant on them and wept with spite

I never would have smashed those shards, 

and climbed with bleeding hands

fixing pieces with cement I mixed

livid and fearful at your demands

Because it took a long time, there's women

deep in the ground

burnt and buried and stoned to death

or exonerated once drowned

It is not hate. It's not personal

but you are not like me

I see that more with every day

with your violence and audacity

You cried and got the mob involved

you whittled down the foundation

The lies, the plots - you vilified me

and your righteous indignation 

was all over the headlines

with the rainbows and sad faces

stories picked from our history

told to keep us in our places

It exposes that which lies within 

people, like me, like you

A different need that begins

in our bodies bound in taboo

We are not the same; my boundaries were erected

with shaking hands and dying self doubt

which proudly I resurrected

I can be the witch, a bitch, a nasty fuckin TERF 

It isn't me who tries to take

your only place on Earth

You're not going to find the words 

that will ever shame me

I found long ago that I

can use them to sustain me

The glass in the wall is fixed and sharp

it isn't just for show

it isn't social justice 

to ignore a woman's 'no'