[Editor's note: This poem was first read at an International Women's Day celebration at Joy Kogawa House in 2015, and is published here with permission.] I want to write a poem for every girl and woman today Who has been told she can't attend school although her brothers can; Who has had acid thrown on her dreams; Who has been shot in the head for thinking; Who is forced into marriage as if her life weren't her own; Who is bought, who is sold; Who weeps or who can no longer weep because of the men who trespass her body; Who is beaten and fearful; who is beaten, but fearless; Who is starved because she speaks out, speaks back, just speaks; Whose house is bombed, whose village is razed; Who is stoned for adultery because she is pregnant; Who is stoned for a rape that male judges call adultery; Whose family erases her, whose community evicts her; Who has just enough money for a single egg; Who carefully slices that egg for her children to eat; Who is denied a single day off work; Who takes on three jobs to keep her family off the street; Who is whipped by her boss after days without sleep; Who watches over our children in manicured playgrounds while her own grow up motherless; Who lies locked for months alone in a cell; Who huddles into herself with eyes like trampled flowers; Whose mind is trapped in the shuddering loop of annihilating night; Who is told she is nothing when she is everything; Who is told she is dirt, when she is the Earth. Read more: Rights + Justice, Gender + Sexuality