There is a comfort found in a collective grief
With each experience a unique perspective
Every cell its own vibrating entity
Making up the pulsing whole
And the wave of sorrow
Moves us in time
Collating our memories
Our pain
Our disgust
Our righteous anger
Diluting not enhancing
Until we’re saturated
Not sated
Until our pain no longer shocks
Because we’ve seen it
Over and over and over
Each time another is lost
Another young woman gone
The communal outrage
Is an echo of all outrages before
A jealous rage
A passionate relationship
A lack of access
A marriage broken
A snapping of fingers
And lives are shredded like ribbons on the wind
And we the blasé
Turn our page
Turn our back
Our cumulative fury
Already spent
We’ve none left to give for the newly stolen
We need to find our rage again
That first time it was felt
We need the fire to burn uniquely
Each and every time
Our exhausted furnace has gone cold
Only ashes and embers
Smolder grey for our stolen women and girls
Set those torches alight
Send the rockets souring
Light the kindling
Stoke the furnace
We must burn bright for them
In our own small ways
The matches
The candles
And the torches
We’ll set them burning for those lost ones
Each and every time the coals begin to cool
The Feminist Poet 