"The Bleeding Rite" - by Quietly Loud

The night is quiet,but the wind trembles.Drums beat softly beneath the moon’s pale gazean ancient rhythm of ritual and restraint. She is only a girl,her eyes still holding the laughter of yesterday.But tonight, they pin her downmother, aunties, women she calls lovetheir hands heavy with tradition,their hearts chained by belief. The blade gleams like betrayal.One cutand innocence becomes silence.Her cry splits the night open,then fades,swallowed by a culture too proud to see the pain it births. What do you gain from her tears?What joy rests in her screams?Do you feel holy when her body trembles?Do you think chastity grows where blood once flowed? You say it makes her purebut who told you pain is purity?You say it makes her calmbut who told you silence is peace?You say it tames her desirebut who told you a woman’s pleasure is a sin? Is it not her right to feel?To laugh, to love, to live freely in her skin? They call it tradition,but traditions that bleed must be buried.They call it heritage,but heritage should not hurt. Across deserts and villages,cities and civilizations,this wound travels in whispers“it’s our way, it’s our pride.”But no pride should cost a child her peace.No belief should break a woman’s body. Culture must evolveor it becomes a cage. And society nods,folding its arms in comfort of excuses.“She must be submissive.”“She must not stray.”“She must not feel too much.” They fear her freedom,so they rename her pain as protection.They teach her silence,and call it strength.They strip her voice,and call it virtue. But a silenced woman is not sacredshe is shackled. Listen closely.You will hear themin the hum of old songs,in the hush of the market,in the hollow eyes of mothers. They survivedsome with scars,some with ghosts.Some can no longer bear children.Some can no longer bear themselves.Their laughter stitched with memory.Their bodies bearing the testimony of pain disguised as purity. Yet still, they rise.Their silence now gathers strength,their whispers forming storms. And nowwe stand where they bled.We speak where they were silenced.Because your voice is your power. No knife, no ritual, no ancient liecan take that away.Every word you speak is a rebellion,every truth you tell a liberation. Female genital mutilation is not cultureit is control.It is not purityit is punishment.It is not virtueit is violence. So raise your voice.Speak for her, for all of them, for us.Let the echo of justice drown the drums of ignorance.Let the world knowa woman’s body is not a battlefield,her pleasure not a sin,her voice not a threat. Your voice, your powerend gender-based violence.Let the silence finally break.Let the cutting end.Let women be whole again.

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