war cry

by zaji

my hand slipped beyond my hem over soft rose and lily dyed Pima cotton, finding its way to the underside of my church length skirt. the chapel bell forgot to ring today. a voice inside warned me to stop, to not give in to the ghost that whispered into my ear telling me to continue. go on, she said. forget the world. i am the voice of ancestors come to remind you of womanhood. i am your remembering, she whispered.

but proper ladies do not lift their skirts except to pee. i did not need to pee. i needed to rub the inside of my DNA. rub until something inside me was unearthed, something the microscope could not see. rub until my moans reached Venus and the women there, hiding on the unseen side of a hidden world gathered their ships to journey to earth, determinedly traveling on the trail of my echoes. they heard a war cry. they heard me, their sister, calling them through time and space, tapping out morse code on the tip of my clitoris. i am sending freedom calls, not messages welcoming the unknown to earth. i am tapping out freedom cries on my wild and waiting clitoris so something will come to save me, save us, the women of Earth. so something will come to hear my war cry, my cry for freedom, my yearning to burn my church skirt, so the gods will know that i am ready....

...to set fire to everything that confines me to what it means to be woman in this place. this is a war cry, tapped out in morse code on the tip of my clitoris. listen, you will hear the SOS, tap tap tap ...tap...tap...tap... tap tap tap. then, just as clear, the war cry rising into the sky. i moan. the message reaches galaxies and i am reminded that i am the woman who remembered Venus and beyond. and Venus remembered me. i become morse code for women who long to join the war cry.

tap it out sisters. tap for freedom and the womanhood that lost itself in a time that threatens to be forgotten. this is not about pain and fear, this is a war cry...for freedom.

i send morse code on the tip of my clitoris, for the sisters who have forgotten how to cry for freedom.