A Feminist Litany

A lump swelled up
in the back of my throat—
choked on the weight
of non-existence,

and who am I,
to speak in the first person?

A woman,
fighting back
against the world’s erasure.

We’ve been conditioned
to downplay our achievements,
to wear lace,
to be quick-witted with our bodies,

erasing the pulse
of a homogenized lifeblood.

Sisters, mothers, daughters—
their names currently disappearing
into endless data.

Identities irrelevant,
fragile histories
compressed, flattened,
into this stream of global progress.

But still—
a silent rebellion stirs,
resisting the fading of all I am.

For in that resistance,
I understand now—
I was never really
my own to begin with.