So we’ve learned karate

Carry knives on our runs

Wield words like weapons

Prepare glares-like hidden guns

We’ve deconstructed, demystified

Tried retribution, remythologized

We’ve been diagnosed with your diseases

And still tried pleases, tried tears, tried Jesus

You wanna see what it’s like down here

In this pool of someone else’s rules, well

Jump in, take a swim or just sit in this pit

Squishing bare toes in someone else’s bullshit

We do it all the time

Still we’ve tried being patient

Collected, calm, nice

Trying praying, tried laying you

Paying the price

We’ve learned to scream

Until our throats throbbed

What else do you do

While your c*nt’s being robbed

And they say “you’ve made progress, girls

Take a rest in-between”

But see while you’re resting

Someone else is progressing

It’s what i’ve seen

So i take back the whispers

The cute mute act

And the high pitched giggles, yeah

I take them back

I won’t avoid your stare, evade your step

Nothing of that kind

Won’t help you help me victimize

The only space that’s mine

See now I’d put my life on the line just to see them trip

Frown and say “funny love, i never saw you slip.”

I say, “my life on the line-”

You say “man, she’s jaded.”

I say, “maybe control’s overrated.”

Like when we cackled, they called us witches

Now we don’t giggle they call us bitches

Well I’m cacklin loud, taking it back, full of hiss

Cacklin loud, cackling proud now

And they’re getting nervous with this kissing each other

Scratching their heads

Whats going on brother

And they yell feed your husband, stop feeding the fire!

And we just cackle

We’re a f*ckin witches choir

And we sing “sharpen your knives, sharpen your daughters

Steam up the mirrors, bake us some dreams

Cook up some riots, fry up some screams

And when you’re sick of your skirts

Slice open the seams

Cause they want domestics

Theyll give us needle and thread

For patching their egos

We’ll sow revolution instead.”

And i hear you saying

“subtle, sister

Less bite, more bark

You can make your point without leaving such a mark

Subtle, sister

Stop your seething

I think we got it, i think we’re even:”

Subtle like a penis pounding its target?

Subtle like your hissing from across the street?

Subtle like the binding on my sisters’ feet?

Subtle like her belly raped with his semen

Draped in his f*ck, funny

Doesn’t seem even

See, sometimes anger’s subtle, stocked in metaphor

Full of finesse and dressed in allure

Yes, sometimes anger’s subtle, less rage than sad

Leaking slow through spigots you didn’t know you had

And sometimes it’s just

F*ck you

F*ck you

You see, and to me

That’s poetry too