by AATILATCHUMI, CAPTAIN KASTURI, LIL MILAGRA RAMIREZ, NIBHA SHAH, & CAPTAIN VAANATI
Get Ready for Battle
Captain Vaanati, trans. Meena Kandasamy
You, who have become
a refugee in your kitchen,
because of the storm of patriarchy
You, waging a silent war with fire!
Get ready, and come!
Let your self-confidence grow
and your courage too.
Do you have any freedom
to act on your thoughts
and your desires?
Family life does not exist
for the have-nots now.
This is what has continued
into the twentieth century.
Like the dreams of someone mute,
your emotions now run silent.
You sob in the kitchen
as you are being rapped.
Get ready, and come away.
Let us create a new era,
in the shadow of the guns
we now carry.
When we get national freedom
that we desire so deeply,
we will build the tomb
for women’s exploitation.
We will dig the graves
for society’s backward ideas.
For this revolution tomorrow,
you must come today.
Look! There, in a flood of blood,
your sister holding her gun out to you.
Take her weapon.
Walk in her footsteps.
Guernica for more