you my sister RE: a busy couple of days
 

 Your words Your deeds Your
  inspiration  Your  bravery. tattered
        poster from the old       days still in        my
                     room   tells   thetruth "Women Hold Up Half The
 Sky"    reading      your   words
         makes me weep        So many years
               trying to hold up my part of the  sky domestic 
violence the cycles  that tear us  all
                                apart             the cycles of teaching conflict
          and stopping tears in those  young children. 

your words hit me,   strong, in the gut, in my
             echo I know we cannot all do
        everything,                                 yes   that   is   why

I ran to the mountains the day OJ was acquitted Yes that is why I
           go to the written word yes that is why I chose to work on healing
                                                                          myself my own PTSD

 then to discover I held the        stories that echoed that hid
             deep in the roots of my own pain My own pain, the horror of
                    listening to the stories, of trying not to see as she told me his

           torture, of trying          to stay focused, of trying to be           professional.
 

I did            not, would not, look at              the Enquirer picture of

           Nichole but instead         bought the t-      shirt reminding every    one 
to
 remember her 
                       they ask "Who Is Nichole?" and I say "She Lives Next Door to you" and walk away still            tired I saw

            enough, I smelled enough gun      powder and touched 
                  enough blood
                                spatter on the faces of children when I 
       went to a call in the                               middle
 of the night I still waken to that smell and that feeling on my fingertips I still see the blood pooled  and
                               the screams, the screams.

 so important my sister my eyes         your eyes so
 important your words       You remind us all that         women hold up
        half the sky and we do not have to destroy ourselves to save
                 the world, but your sister did.       rachelcorrie The bulldozers showed no
             mercy and I cry and I cried and I still live in the world
                                where I can touch the sky...
 

I can not tell you the honor            I give to you now bow
                                                                                     ing in
                                                                                             front of you as you share with us this             view of the  world as you share with us         your passion your
            strength I bow 
                                 to 
                                   your 
                                          spirit. I 
                                                     bow to the 
                                                                    spirit of all

            the women who are   stopping
the tanks, the neighbors, the
                                bombs,   the war toys the ideas that war is
                                solution.

          No easy answers I grasped for years to find them and you
          show me again No easy answers and the sound bytes just
         tell us the questions I know that we cannot keep still I

 know that we must continue to rage rage rage

the bandaids got bloodier and         bloodier and I could not
             find the bottom the bag that held them all and the tape was
                       running out and the wounds were too deep and I could not
                          keep the bandages flowing I had to stop and take a 
breath and find who
                                I was raging against and it was the SILENCE
 

     thank you my sisters for watching the world for             telling me
         what you see what you feel how you hear it how it smells how
     it feels to touch the blood spatter how that voice            rumbles

past you when you put up your arm to say NO MORE fist and the silence is broken fist the screams are not          the only noise           that you
          bring to me sisters The silence is broken You bring me truth You
                                                    bring the wisdom

              You bring this crone the treasure of knowing that women will
                not stop that women will keep on that women were right to
                keep the sky in their hands that we hold on to each other to