***Writer’s Note: This poem is not intended as an indictment of male/female romantic love and intimacy, nor as a criticism of men’s respectful admiration of women (highlight respectful!), but is rather intended as a forceful calling to account of the attempted control, possession, sexualization and domination of women by unhealed masculine forces, which women have so often also internalized. It is also a call for women to remember and stand in their true power as vessels of the Divine.***

!

She’s done having her thighs
Stared at and sized
Up while a pack of men stand
With their cocks in their hand
As she trades her sacred shakti dance
For the payoff of their salivating glance

And they say we should be flattered
When they cat-call us on the street
Flattered that they approve of us
Like human slabs of meat

And they say we should smile sweetly
And enjoy the attention
When men fondle and touch us
In places they shouldn’t dare mention.

Probing with fingers and tongues and eyes
Against our will as we struggle and cry
I promise you now that these times are over
And you will all soon remember the Mother

Because men; I don’t dance for you.
It’s not about your sexy view.
I am primal woman,
My power emanates
From an ancient Temple
With snake lined gates
I gyrate my hips and thighs
And it is for no man’s eyes
And it is for no man’s clutch
For this heat, you don’t dare touch
What I’m invoking
Is a volcano smoking
Erupting and quaking
Through my sex shaking
Gyrating and generating
Worshipping and venerating
A shimmying chance
To bring down this dance
Down to the ground
To burn all around
Nothing can top it
And nothing can stop it
No one’s in control of Her
Just let the lava roll out of Her
Liquid fire spreading
Through the old world heading
For ultimate rupture
And ultimate death
Falling into the Goddess’ cleft
To be sanctified and rebirthed
The truth primordial, now unearthed

Summoning sweet magic and reclaiming history
By this raw and rapturous mystery
That’s in between my legs.

~

Author: Sara Sophia Eisenman

Editor: Travis May

Image: Elina Tserlin—Used with Permission