The Story Women are Told

She looks at me
with vulnerable
yet barricaded eyes
and says to me,

“Tell me the recipe
for our survival,
so I can adapt
and learn to live.”

I hear her words
and remember my own,
as I asked my mother
who asked hers.

I try to form an answer
but the tide seems to cast away,
the letters I write on the sand
each time I try to show her hope

for a new way of life.
It seems like each grain
feels my hands as they shake
with every movement they make.

It seems like the sand can see
the imaginary guards that
every girl has herself surrounded by
as she walks in the heart of her city.

The grains hear the sound of
the cries for help as
the formula for survival
fails to accomplish its one goal.

The grains absorb the ocean,
sliding on my face,
and feel the weight
of the pain, taking too much from the shore.

I look at her,
with her eyes now holding fear
at my hesitation of 30 seconds.
A mere 30 seconds

were enough to let her understand,
but I didn’t have the luxury to stay silent;
silence was never an option,
not after all the hurt.

So, I told her stories
of her fellow warriors,
and I tell her of their resilience
for I would not allow

their memories to fade.
The cog they have turned
will turn another;
it will not end in vain.