Asphalt Roses

The world is just waking up from a 6,000 year old slumber

and it’s because strong women ripped the curtains open so that the sun glares into its eyes.

Whilst men have jaunted into board meetings and courtrooms

with inherited money and inherited privilege,

women have been stuck outside the building, barred from entering.

So, we make the best out of what we have.

Girls take to the streets they have been shunted onto.

Girls dressed in black, ball gowns, and/or bikinis

take back the world that should have already been theirs.

They leave flowers in their wake.

Cracking up through the asphalt.

They bloom in every spot a woman has walked

in defiance to the frigid molds they are expected to fill.

These are the women who see themselves in storybooks

and these are the women who write the stories themselves.

I see a woman with her breasts bared,

daring any serpent minded person to reach out with a taloned finger and touch her.

Three young women march down the center of the street,

wearing high heels that make sunflowers shoot out of the concrete beneath them.

They walk with heads held high, right fists raised, and voices striking

through the hum.

I see a woman sitting all the way up on a crosswalk signal,

her body draped over the red stop hand

like ribbons of morning glory on a telephone wire.

She looks so at ease, surrounded by brave women and their allies,

who stand as strong as sequoias.

When these women asked politely for human rights,

rights that should be a given, but seem as rare as diamonds,

they were met with indifference and icy laughter.

So they dug their hands into the dirt and pulled their rights from the earth.

Fingers bleeding and grime up to their elbows

they look up to the men on pedestals, hoping for a fraction of help.

Eyes filled with vile horror stare back. “Don’t you see what a mess you’ve made?”

is all they say before turning away.

So the women dig deeper and do not look up again.

This is up to us.

Strong women yell and scream and keep on digging.

If we are heard or not is no longer up to us,

it’s up to them to listen.