Poem: 9/01/21, Texas, by Ruhani Chhabra

blasphemous, to be in charge
of your own flesh.

obey those
who will never carry the burden
that has been imposed
since the beginning of time—
six weeks, they generously offer,
to discover if the course
of your existence has been altered forever,
six weeks to pray for blood that will not come.

let their long black gowns,
slathered in patriarchal superiority,
dictate every inch of your body;
unwitting during conception,
unwilling during conception.

let the babies have babies;
tend to life as you barely start your own,
cradle a wailing child in one hand
and an algebra textbook in the other.

let labor drain you
of health and resources,
rip you apart until
nothing is left.

rue for those jane roes,
for the dismissals of their traumas,
their choiceless futures,
and their bodies rendered still—

let your cries be silenced,
and biblical destinies fulfilled,
value those feeble heartbeats
and the legislation that protects them
more than they protect you.

Author: poetryfest

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