All Over Again

News Alert: Approximately 20

The headline cut off by the screen resolution

But I knew.

I knew without tapping.

I knew without thinking.

The words that would follow those four.

Because those words come so often.

Too often.

Begging for something. Anything. Ending.

And nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Gets. Done.

The same repetition of words.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.

There are no words. No words for this.

Choking on platitudes.

The worst mass-shooting.

Domestic terror.

A frame for this terrible. Terrible. Thing.

And it’s all I can do not to wonder.

Not to wonder what thing will earn that title next.

The worst mass-shooting.

Because they do nothing.

Clinging instead to words written before this world.

They may have had the best of intentions.

Paving the road to the hell we’re living.

We have to do something.

Because I knew. I knew without doubt.

With a weight on my heart.

The words that would follow those four.

And I wondered instead, not twenty what? But where? And who?

Who was killed this time?
Where did they die?

Because those words come so often.

Too often.

News Alert: Death Toll Rises

Came as no surprise.

We’re all so sorry. And we’re all so angry.

And they do nothing.

And they do nothing.

Our Mother

Her name a curse dropped quick from their lips.

Rising from blood[ dripped down ]from darkened fingertips.

Eyes that flashed a thousand stars.

The bloodiest, bloodiest, damned of them all.

She was me.

She was my sister, my mother. 

She was everyone and no one.

Burned like ash and rising from flames.

The witch the world could not shame.

We are one. And none.

Bloody and broken.

Billions of souls and one terrible truth.

This is the woman who rose from the mud.

The woman who scraped and fought for her blood.

We are all her and she is us.

Together we stand, bathed in her love.

This Eve. This Lilith. This Mother of All. She is our monster. Our goddess. Our all.

And with her we stand.

As sisters. As women.

She is our mother, our sister.

Barren or not.

She is our sister, our mother.

Regardless of birth.

She is our sister, our mother—because she says she is.

And our mother, our mother, bloody and tall, she watches and watches.

And watches us all.

 - AKA

We Rise

A thousand small cruelties

A thousand thorns in our skin

Like arrows in a giant’s hide

Bleeding sluggish, dragging

Painful pricks

Burning

A thousand small cruelties

A thousand words over time

Breaking and beating

Stealing our breath

Slowing

Weighing

A thousand small cruelties

A thousand and one

It’s just not done

And still

And still

We rise

- Ash K. Alexander