Leave your fingernails
in the walls and
climb.

There is a place
where women walk
with the confidence
of constellations
gleaning across
the night sky.

It is not paradise,
but it is better
than the life
of a girl raised

with her books
chosen for her,
a shareholder
of a uterus,
the government’s claws
waiting to dig
into a womb
to catch
whatever
may tear its way out.

One day we will look down
into the cesspool,
the flesh of those
who didn’t make it,
smiling up at us
and know the footholds
we stretched to reach
were made for us:

a coalescing
of women raising
each other up.