MICHELLE DANG

Abolish the Past, Not the Future

          No woman can call herself free
          Who does not control her own body.
          — Margaret Sanger

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We stand for a nation
Where women are too radical in desiring autonomy,
And asinine for their opposition of madmen
Who view not the repercussions,
Only the temporary exhilaration over exercising
Power over the lives of women.
A nation that is deluded into insanity
By altruistic fallacies, spinning tales of
Supposed goodwill when we know very well
That pro-life only applies
To a fetus and not the child.

We stand for a nation
That is ever changing yet always receding,
A patriarchal society insistent on silencing our voices
To never have to listen.
A nation that rejects girls and women,
Yet whose sleight of hand
Cannot hide the slights committed
Against the generations of women young and old.

We stand for a nation
That implies our solitary purpose is to birth children,
Yet cannot fathom complications in birth
Or the simple absence of maternity.
A nation that faults prepubescent girls
And teenage girls for the acts of heinous men,
For the results of fallible contraception,
All the while discounting accountability to villainize them.

We stand for a nation
That demolishes young girls’
Futures before they’ve even grown up,
Damning them from the first breath,
Sealing their fate at birth.
A nation that, in its current affirmations,
Does not care who is hurt.

These politicians and officials today,
They pledge to learn from the egregious past,
But all I read
These days, on the front of newspapers,
Are all their repeating mistakes.
Justice is not with us.
It is not on this earth, not if we don’t fight
For the justice that we deserve.

So to the alleged defenders of justice,
Why stand for a nation
That denies the claim that we are human beings
With a right to the same control of our bodies as men?
Rather, we’ll fight tooth and nail,
Knock on your door, and protest until
Our voices invite a tremor and earthquake
That will transmogrify this nation
To a nation of people,
And rebuild our future to a future of difference;
A future where we will change.

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