A Poem for Women Who Rise to Resist, Create, and Transform
Kehinde Margret Makinde@kehindemargretmakinde
2 months ago
Dream. Plan. Do. Repeat. 🔄
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Borders and Bridges
In the purr of factories, in the rays of screens,
racial capitalism lends hush its blade on inheritance —
profits drawn from skin,
from histories pressed into the bone.
Long ago, this world built on broken promises,
on stolen bodies made into currency,
on hierarchies carved like initials
into the bark of nations.
But what is an empire to a woman?
A woman who walks through its shadow,
her hands heavy with labour,
her name erased in transactions,
her resistance voiceless and hefty.
Across waters, words of narration stretches —
women of colour map new worlds
with voices that refuse the borders
lured to silence them.
Not sameness, no,
but shared knowledge of what it means
to be left out,
to be undone,
to rise anyway.
Women speak of hands
palm in palm— all colours,
through the imperial rubble,
calling names the world would rather forget,
turning grief into a geographic solidarity.
What is a system to a woman
who sees through its illusions?
Global capitalism,
with its polished markets and mirrored lies,
does not account for the weight of their knowing,
the strength of their alliances.
There is no one story,
only fragments of truths —
shouted, murmured—
that converge in the moment of action.
What binds them is not sameness,
but unending intro, outro, and the in-betweens
in every hand joined,
in every wall breached,
in the face of structures
that crumble women into statistics,
they imagine themselves whole.
They resist,
they create,
movements and oasis,
alliances and homes.
In their Dutch breath,
there is a murmur —
of what has been purloined,
and what remains to be reclaimed.
Picture Credit: StockCake
Name of Picture: Free Justice amidst ruins
