When The Woman Gather

You built your house with a woman’s spine

With her good young years and her working time

With her quiet mouth and her blistered hands

And called her lucky to be your land

You taught your sons that a girl bends best

With a hand at her throat and a boot on her chest

Then acted shocked when the flood came red

As if your violence had not been fed

⸻

You can dress a wound in a wedding lace

Still rot is rot and a grave’s a grave

(low backing voices)

“Grave’s a grave…”

⸻

When the women gather, the walls come thin

The devil you made can’t save your skin

You buried us deep, but we learned to grow

Roots in the dark where your sins all go

We know your names, we know your lies

We know the look in a dead girl’s eyes

And we are done being good for you

When the women gather, it ends for you

(backing voices, harsher)

“Ends for you”

“Ends for you”

⸻

You called her difficult, called her mad

Just to hide what your hands had had

You called her ruined, called her wild

After you fed on her like a child

You love a woman with no sharp edges

No voice, no rage, no broken ledges

But every saint you ever praised

Was just a woman you half erased

⸻

There’s a sound that comes when the meek bite back

Not a hymn, not a prayer, more a bone-deep crack

(choir hum begins under it)

⸻

When the women gather, the walls come thin

The devil you made can’t save your skin

You buried us deep, but we learned to grow

Roots in the dark where your sins all go

We know your names, we know your lies

We know the cost of your alibis

And we are done being good for you

When the women gather, it ends for you

⸻

You took and took

And called it right

You ate the day

You feared the night

You made us kneel

To make you tall

Now hear our feet

Down every hall

(spoken, cold)

You should have killed the story

before it learned to sing

⸻

No more daughters with their anger sewn shut

No more mothers digging grief out of the gut

No more mercy for the wolves in a man’s grin

No more asking what happened to make him like this

Let him answer

Let him answer

Let him answer

For every ruined thing

⸻

When the women gather, the air turns black

We come like crows for what you lack

No, you can’t pray us out of the room

We are the branch, the rope, the bloom

We know your names, we spit them plain

We know your house was built from pain

And we are done being good for you

When the women gather, it ends for you

(full choir)

“It ends for you”

“It ends for you”

“It ends for you”

⸻

You wanted daughters soft as bread

Instead you raised the wrongly dead

You wanted silence, neat and pure

Now hear the sound of women at your door

(final choir, almost chanted)

“We remember”

“We remember”

“We remember”