An endless litany of voices

Suppressed and Silenced.

My warnings join the cacophony of the unheard.

Yet I see a tide rising.

My voice is dangerous.

When we challenge their lies,

The powerful claim oppression

With phrases built on the deaths

Of women who dared to live.

It’s not a Witch Hunt.

It’s a reckoning.

In the sway of my leaves,

A vestige of my final violent breath,

You saw a nod of consent.

Though my lips have sealed,

My body is protected by my silent bark

Yet you pluck my leaves from my limbs

As though I have given them willingly,

An excuse on your lips that I should be pleased.

They will become a symbol of victory.

But whose victory?

Where you saw a wild thing to be tamed,

I felt fleeting freedom.

Where you saw a pursuit of passion,

I felt hunted.

Where you saw love,

I felt fear.

They say I am a pawn

In a war of male ego.

Complacent. Loving. Captive.

But in the silence,

I call for plague,

I curse my captors,

I resist in quiet anger.