Our lips sewn shut

by the macabre weavers

upon the unjust mount,

our limbs pulled taut

against our suffocating trunks.

With our eyes taped over

no longer seeing day,

a mighty river begins to boil

screaming at its banks.

A man, a boy,

and twenty upon twenty more.

A girl, a woman,

and thirty upon thirty more.

And every gender, every genre,

every gene,

becomes a broiling mass

of unrequited voice.

With lips sewn shut

and limbs unmoving,

with eyes taped over

and feet held firm,

we’ll rise above the river’s banks

and make our voices heard.

We’ll roil upon the twisted earth,

a writhing, reeling mass,

and scream and twist

and boil

until our voice is one,

united in solidarity

against this call to silence

that ties us to the ground.