About a month ago
I saw a woman with her child
in a pantsuit
She had an “I voted” sticker on
I smiled at her and said thank you.
She laughed back.
I saw a nasty woman
getting ready to vote.

I felt full of hope
I walked a bit taller
confident that as a woman
I finally was seen as human
because a woman
would become U.S. president

Instead the world caved in.
Sure, she wasn’t perfect
but he was everything she was
tenfold.
Lying.
Crooked.
The only thing he had going
for himself was, well, he was
a white male.

White men and too many white women
apparently are too threatened
by being represented
by a woman.

So today, I walk with a broken heart.
We still haven’t made it.
We got kicked back into the gutter.

I mourn.
And I am mad as hell.

Men still tell me how to feel.
“Don’t be scared,” he wrote
even though the times are terrifying.
“Be kind to each other,” he suggested
even though they are so mean I can hardly breathe.
What’s worse
these are men who claim to be
progressive.

Stop telling me how to feel
Stop telling me how to be
Stop telling me what I can and cannot do

For this election was stolen
White men are so power-hungry
(and immoral)
that they stop from nothing to ensure
that they remain in power.

Enough of this already!

It is time that we women rise up
even with tears in our hearts
and streaming down our faces.

It is time that we stop pretending
that we don’t matter
that we need to stay in our place.

It is time that we take up space
that we scream and shout
that we dance and kick
that we take back the power
that belongs to us.