Salem Massachusetts: 1692
Nine generations back
my great grandmother Susanna North is executed.
Her crime: witchcraft
Enchanting young women to exhibit fits of rage
Which to some, resemble a certain insanity
As punishment she is hung up high for the world to see
Her death served as a warning for those who dare oppose established order
None shall suffer a witch to live
And today, this message still stands

Washington D.C: 2016
Hillary Clinton makes her fatal mistake
Daring to tread on the patriarchy’s land
Her punishment: death by shame
Now her town square is a mob of faceless accusers
Hiding behind the torchlight of their computer screens
Some Days she still suffocates on the story,
Still feels the grip of her noose around her neck
They used sticks and stone men as kindling
No woman is spared this torture


A message like the one they sent my great grandmother Susanna North nearly 300 years ago
A women who laughed in the faces of her accusers
And as these stories stuck up like colonial pyers???
Our eyes begin to feel the smoke
Our faces flush red
And our hands burn
We feel comment sections crumbling beneath our feet
But what they do not remember
Is that we have been resurrecting for as long as we have been feared


Us witches know how to speak in the devil's tongue
Know how to swim no matter how they try to sink us
Can turn prison bars into snakes
We are descended not from witchcraft but from women unafraid of the truth
No matter how large your village is
No matter how many beleive your charade
We will continue to laugh in your faces
If practicing magic makes us monsters
If having power makes us something to fear
Go ahead. Take us to court
Take us to the stake and watch us rise with a thousand heads
You may have found new ways to burn us
Made a spectacle of everything we stand for
Creating a world in which we are always guilty of fighting the ropes that hold us back
Women have always been forced to endure your trials
But a true witch will never burn.