This is the first poem I wrote when deconstructing patriarchy in my religion, gender and culture.

Original poem copy below, ©Elizabeth Langston, 2024

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Dear Patriarchy

By Elizabeth Langston

I wanted to be a nice girl

Until I learned that you killed my sisters 

I enjoyed being a quiet girl

Until I learned that you took their voices

I wanted to be a compliant healer

Until I learned that you overtook women’s healing arts

I wanted to turn the other cheek 

Until I saw so many women hurting and frozen under your grip, I couldn’t look away.

I wanted to be a domestic woman, 

Until I learned my feminine ancestors were domesticated.

I wanted to be a clean woman 

Until I realized my sensuality is Holy.

I didn’t want to disrupt anything

Until I learned how disrupted my matriarchal line has been

I was willing to do what you told me 

Until I was shown my Inner Temple and Authority

I didn’t want to be disobedient

Until I realized that disobedient women are behind some of the greatest freedoms we know today—

I tried. 

I tried to stay out of the way. 

I did. 

I cleared myself of all magic and powerful yearnings

I dedicated my Self to domestic identity

But then the Goddess came to me... 

She came into my home full of pregnancy and babies 

And She wrecked into my Mind. 

She stole all my perfectly stacked identities 

And she whispered to me while I slept, “You are Wild.”

When I awoke one day from Motherhood, I saw: this is not all of me. 

I felt the Missing of my Pieces. 

Depression ensued. (Depression is the Initiation of the Goddess.)

–There were ambulances 

There were new homes and letting go of old friends

There was darkness, 

Then a splash, 

And a Rebirth

Of Me. 

Elizabeth. 

Priestess of the Cave 

Awakener of Women

On Mission for the Goddess

To Heal the Feminine in All Beings. 

—-

I slaved for you in religious callings. 

And Now, I demand that my Women be set free. 

I am opening their cages 

I am unclipping their magic wings 

They are unfurling their beauty and sexual selves 

They are showing their shoulders. 

–

I am torturing those organizations who tortured Woman

Who stuffed her wild parts so far back into Her psyche, the collective ‘She’ almost forgot them. 

But I won’t let the women forget. 

‘Woman’ may be Endangered, but she cannot and will not be Extinct. 

Because Woman is a heartbeat, a living thing

She is alive inside every woman

And the Goddess is awakening Woman, the full spectrum of woman, 

Through visions, dreams, night wakings, depression, havoc and chaos

Women are being Reborn into Feminine Ways. 

—

We call our Pagan ancestors up from their graves

To teach us of their ways.

We are Restoring the magikal, 

mystical, 

psychic gifts of women.

You. Should. Be. Scared.

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