Seven Women

Lisa

In a round, they spoke their pain:
childhood sexual abuse,
the voices inside her head,
molestation, rape, violence,
the "disappeared" women
of the streets
who vanish, 
nameless and invisible,
the woman whose seven babies died,
one after the other,
the woman who thought she was well
because she "got on with it",
without ever grieving 
what had been done to her.

Seven women,
their stories all true, heart-rending,
and spoken with strength.

Powerful pain
and powerful women,
to have survived it all
and kept on walking.

At the end,
I realized
you could take any seven women,
anywhere,
and hear the same stories,
the identical pain.

And yet, we rise.
Again and again,
generation after generation,
we go on loving.
We rise.


Last night I attended a play about women's stories, spoken by seven women, the stories all true. My daughter, Lisa,  was one of the actresses, and made me proud. At the end, we stood, to honor their voices and validate women's experiences. What's that quote? "It isn't safe to be a girl child in a world full of men." Alice Walker, The Color Purple.