THE PRICE OF SILENCE

They taught me manhood like a hymn:

Stand tall. Swallow feeling. Never bend.

I wore my father’s shadow like a crown,

Learned strength was measured in the sound

Of heavy boots, not trembling hands.

I watched my mother build our home

On bones ground quiet into sand,

Her voice a ghost beneath the loam

Of fields she tilled, of children borne,

Of fires lit before the dawn.

I never saw the weight she carried,

Only the space where he was buried

Beneath his name, his pride, his throne

A monument of silent stone.

Feminism?

A word like glass – sharp, clear, cold.

Not worn like machismo, thick and old,

A cloak I never chose, yet couldn’t shed,

Binding my heart, confining my head.

I played the fool, the strutting part,

Laughed too loud to hide the smart

Of knowing I was out of time,

A dissonant, unwelcome chime

In culture’s heavy, marching song.

Where did I belong?

Where did she belong?

Then came the day they bought my pride

For seventy shillings. Wide-eyed,

I stood outside the marketplace stall,

My back against a crumbling wall.

A merchant, grinning, greased and sly,

Tossed coins – a gesture meant to buy

Not just my labor hauling sacks,

But me. The calculation lacked

The dignity of sweat, the worth

Of honest toil upon this earth.

Seventy shillings. Thin and cheap.

The price for which a “man” is sheep.

My anger flared – a useless spark –

Then died. The shadows pooled and dark

Crept in. A sudden, chilling dread:

Is this the measure of the thread

That holds her value? Day by day?

The cloak I wore began to fray.

For in that moment, sharp and crude,

I glimpsed the crushing solitude

Of womanhood ignored, unseen,

The burden carried, sharp and keen,

By mothers, sisters, daughters – all

Who built the nation, watched it rise

Beneath indifferent, clouded skies,

Their voices swallowed by the wall

Of our indifference, our neglect,

Our fragile, self-important sect

Of “macho fools.” We never knew

The cost extracted, silent, true,

Until the coin of our conceit

Was counted at our own bruised feet.

I am the fool. Trapped still, it’s true,

Between the old world crashing through

And the fierce light that beckons, burns –

The path where true equality yearns.

I hold the coin. It chills my skin.

A nation built in silence…

Let the reckoning begin…