The news voices blare

Terror, the grief of a new disposition

Arising, seen by all who realize now

Their body isn’t theirs anymore

 

The brave men and women who fought

For their rights and others

Are now being forgotten

Pushed away into a drawer with the key swallowed

All their hard work making a difference no more

 

A new future has begun

One that sounds like a bad sci-fi novel’s plot

With people fighting, some for justice and rights

Others for their own personal gains

While choosing violence over and over again 

 

One with all of the years of work gone within a matter of months

Now giving way to men choosing what women can and can’t do

As if it’s the 17th century again

 

I know it’s human nature to repeat history for centuries

But this is unsettling

Kids like me wake up, eat some breakfast 

and see the horrible things said on live tv

 believing that it’s just normal

 

The boundaries between past and present are merging

WIth the future, as it has for many millennia

When will this stop?

Why do old white men make all the decisions

Buy out others for control

Of everything including

Women's bodies and their own reproductive rights

Treated like objects they can’t win back

 

Is this our future? My future?

Raped, assaulted, peer-pressured, or having made a mistake

I must go to another state

To abort my baby

Like thousands of others have done

Just in Texas alone?

 

Pro-life? All for what? To save a life? 

What about the life of the girl or woman who's having the baby?

What if we want a choice?

A choice to put up for adoption, keep, or abort

What about the life of the girl who may want to be a physicist

And go to college, become successful in her own right

Who may not be financially stable enough to care for a baby’s demands

Who may not have a support system

Who may be just a kid herself

 

What would happen if we learned from our mistakes

If the government learned from their mistakes

Instead of making them again, again, again

Could my generation and others receive the rights they deserve

The same rights past generations fought for

Regardless of their gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and race

 

Could we all live without AR-15 assault rifles?

Without being divided like this is the Civil War again

Without arguing about the economy and making decisions 

Upon it instead of what the politician has to offer

Without threats that may push humanity backward for hundreds of years

Without Roe vs Wade overturned and the possibility 

that others like Brown vs Board of Education may be as well

Without having to travel hundreds of miles to get a safe abortion

Without getting arrested because of your race or receiving an abortion

 

Until then, until humanity stops repeating the same mistakes

Until everyday life doesn’t feel like a ticking time bomb

We should all talk about the past

Learn from it, teach it how it was instead of whitewashing it

And think about how it shapes the future today

 

I don’t want my future to be controlled by someone other than myself 

And I know others, especially powerful, independent women

 Such as the Mirabal Sisters and Juliette Gordon Low 

Wouldn’t want that either.