Dear Jane
Dear Jane
Dear Jane,
It’s not your fault, whatever they may say.
Your choices never gave your rights away.
It’s okay to drink, to celebrate, to choose.
It’s okay to wear what you want without excuse.
It’s okay to trust, to let somebody near.
It’s okay to feel your anger, grief, and fear.
It’s okay to question those you trusted then.
It’s okay to question what you knew back when.
None of these things were invitations to take.
None of your choices made your boundaries theirs to break.
What you could not give, they had no right to take.
What was always yours was never theirs to break.
Your compass may be clouded by the doubt,
By everything that taught you to shut your instincts out.
Your memory may return in fragments, unclear,
While pieces once forgotten slowly reappear.
A line was crossed, though some deny the line,
Because admitting boundaries means we must define
Why women are so often made to defend
The boundaries that were always theirs from start to end.
A woman and her body belong to herself,
Not something to be claimed by anybody else.
Not to anyone who desires to possess,
Not to the space between silence and yes.
They may have tried to make you doubt your voice,
Your certainty, your right to make a choice.
But we shrill shrews will stand beside you, stone by stone,
And remind you that you were always your own.
They take and take and still expect compliance,
We stand together and answer with defiance.
They forget, before they learned to take from one,
They first came from a woman, every one.
A cry for justice will not disappear,
A revolt against oppression draws us near.
We are listening. We are watching without fear.
We are moving. We are here.
And when they ask our voices to disappear,
We are here. We are here. We are here.
— Sofia Aronovsky
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