Personal Platform: ‘Caged Woman No More.’

My cage gapes wide open at the door

Never have I ventured outside my confinement before

What strange sentiments churn at my core

My heart palpitates for more-

Than the existence to which I have been subjugated

At the hands of man and constantly berated-

For daring to have my own thoughts and feelings

But no more at his knees will I be kneeling

For dawn has awoken in me a ferocious fight

To join my fellow species in our plight-

For emancipation.

Now in military precision we hasten

Through the saturated street

Trampling the aura of feminine domesticity at our feet

And galvanizing our willowy frames for the inevitable battle

To obliterate a husband’s prerogative to regard his wife as cattle,

Armed with white banners adorned with scarlet scripts

We remain defiant against the chapping of our lips

As the cold clings to our clothes and the wind whips our hair

The warmth we absorb from one another subdues our despair

Together – constitutionalists and militants – we campaign

Our voices, like Nightingales, sweetly sing our refrain:

                   “VOTES FOR WOMEN”