Shema Yisrael: A Response to Gender Violence and the Men Who Wrote #ItWasMe

The flood gate has opened.

And the water is filled with the sunken.
From the depths, come sisters’ cries,
Faint but discernible.
 
And yet…the others look to themselves.
“It was me.”
“I did it.”
“Punish me.”
“Admonish me.”
“See me.”
 
The shame is paralyzing, unyielding  
Defacing.
And while brothers wander in the lonely pasture.
Sisters are still in the water. 
 
Let us walk from land to sea.
And listen to the prayer of the sunken:
 
Shema Yisrael
Hear O Israel.
 
Concern us not with how we are seen.
But with how we hear. And act.
 
Pulling our sisters 
and our selves out of the drowning place 
At long, long last.

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