Why did you make me a woman?

What say have my kind had in your country?
Ah, is it because we are objects to you,

That you objectify your country into a woman?
Then it can be perfect and voiceless

Just as you’ve always wanted. 
Unable to think yet alone speak for herself. 

There to nod, laugh, and smile at all your sins. 
Coddle you after each mistake.

It was you men who rebelled from the king,
What independence were my kind given?

What vote have we ever had?
My kind gives life to the world. 

We give color to the opaque
And candles to the shadowed. 

Look in one of your impoverished cities,
There you will find my working sister,

She suffers the same fate as men,
Working away for another,

Then comes home to manage the affairs. 
She has no maids, no help,

Only herself and her children. Her husband
Is gone fighting another of your greed filled wars. 

She has fought twelve wars,
Shedding more blood than most men ever have.

Every other year of her life has been battle,
All that remains are her six children,

Little did they know that they fought for years,
Silently, alongside her. 

Because when the birth pangs are gone, the war lives on
Every illness is combat, each living child a conquest against fate. 

When will her revolution come?
That day we can forgive your mockery,

Then, I could wear this star,
And it would not be buffalo,

Horses, or the thousand nations you shattered
Fleeing before us, no

We will not come with telegraph lines,
Carriages, and locomotives. 

We come with storms, with justice,
With brilliant luster from all you’ve wronged. 

My star now blinding light, shining with
Everything this country promised,

But never to us. 
When you see our shadow

The fear in you will show,
Trembling like a flower in a stampede. 

And the truth in the lie you wrote
Before us, 

All men are created equal,
Will begin to be true.