Illustration © Eric N. Peterson

 

Her Voice
“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
–Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Her voice thickens with gravitas
when she speaks of love,honor,
dignity and determination
her chest heaves, her bosom rise and falls
when they utter the raging strength
carved in womanhood

Her voice gets the metallic taste
the afterburn;
when she talks about her recovery and the pain
riddled with the victory marks and the scars
time has meticulously embroidered
on her suppurating skin

Her voice is the beacon
carving the path for millions to follow
scratched in the skin of the time
refusing to fit in the cookie cutter
not morphing her voice to please the millions
her victory is self-defined.

Her voice reflects her burnished wounds
of her trailblazing journey
a path making her notorious
A life meant for not just for herself
But for the greater good of mankind

Her voice trembles with disgust and anger
when men claim their rights
to a body, a false ownership
an atrocity undefined.

Her voice an absolute war cry
a bull horn for the naysayers;
a language which needs no interpretation
reckoning with magnitude
as she said rightly,
placing the women on a pedestal
is a metaphor for caging them alive.

A great dissenter
an epitome for truth and determination;
a force to reckon with,
My RBG,
a shimmering beacon for justice and equality
forever etched in the folds of time.

 

Megha Sood lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. She is an Assistant Poetry Editor for the UK based Arts and Literary Journal MookyChick.She is a contributing member at Free Verse Revolution, Heretics, Lovers and Madmen, Sudden Denouement, Whisper and the Roa, GoDogGoCafe. Over 440+ works in journals including Better than Starbucks, Gothamist. Poetry Society of New York, WNYC Studios, Kissing Dynamite, American Writers Review, FIVE:2: ONE, Quail Bell, Dime Show Review, etc. and Works featured/upcoming in 40 other print anthologies by the US, UK, Australian, and Canadian Press. Three-time State-level Winner NAMI Dara Axelrod NJ Poetry Contest 2018/2019/2020.National Winner Spring Robinson Lit Prize 2020, Finalist in Pangolin Poetry Prize 2019, Adelaide Literary Award 2019 and Erbacce Prize 2020, Nominated for the iWomanGlobalAwrads 2020, Works selected numerous times by Jersey City Writers group and Department of Cultural Affairs for the Arts House Festival. Currently co-editing an anthology celebrating the 100 years of the Woman’s suffrage movement in the US. She tweets at @meghasood16.

Eric N. Peterson is from Atlanta, Ga. He’s been drawing cartoons all his life. He leans towards the absurd, imaginative, and the surreal, as that’s where all the flavor is.