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
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'
