I stand behind generations of women,
Who silently bore the burdens of life with little or no complaints,
I stand behind those grandmothers, mothers and daughters
Giving birth, nursing their infants, sowing the field, harvesting the crops,
watching over the sick and the dying,
Cooking and cleaning and washing for their families,
Giving small sighs when they couldn’t abide any longer.
And if I listen carefully, I can hear what their husbands and sons never heard
I hear them groaning, screaming, cursing, grinding their teeth, clenching their fists
Desperately fighting against their worst fears,
Fears of loss and rejection, of sickness and death.
I can hear the deafening noise they are making, an enraged army of child bearers,
I can see them staggering and fall, all victims of abuse and neglect;
That’s when I decide to enroll and carry on the fight.
I don’t even know whether this fight will ever end;
Nor do I know whether or not I’ve become a victim myself
I only trust what some grandmother said to me:
“Face your worst fear and it will disappear “.