**"The Clock Tower Rebellion"** They said a woman’s place was *in the home*— so we built homes inside our fists. Every hour, the town square clock strikes,
By Elena Vale2 years ago in Poets
The books here breathe— spines cracking with the weight of words their authors swallowed: *How to Poison a King and Smile at the Funeral*
They built a wing for us— glass cases full of empty gloves, sound recordings of laughter with no mouths to claim them, a quilt stitched from letters
We didn’t come to be quiet. We came to knock on doors they thought were sealed, to say the thing they wish we’d swallow.
They told us God was a man with a beard, a throne, and rules that hurt us. But we have met the divine in other forms.
Dear me, You don’t owe them a version of yourself they can digest. You were never meant to be small, pliable, or palatable.
Subtitle: Because they never expected us to laugh this loud while tearing it all down They wanted us tired, terrified, too busy surviving
She mothers like it’s protest. Like every packed lunch and sleepless night is a form of resistance in a world that calls caregiving weakness.
I want to love without softening my voice so you can hear yourself louder. I want to be chosen without auditioning. I want love that doesn’t ask me
She laid down. And the world called it laziness. But her body called it return. Her bones whispered, We were not made
She doesn’t flinch when I unravel. Doesn’t offer “calm down” or “look on the bright side.” She offers a match. “Let’s set fire to what hurts you,”
She didn’t call it feminism. She called it survival. Said it while folding clothes, while stirring the pot of rice and worry.
