You can make another—the words panted out in between clutching a handful of their dress, reaching underneath and up, handling them as if they could never hurt, and it was like that moment right when they were thrown on their backs, legs spread wide, right when they could feel the push as they muffled the urge to scream. They clenched their teeth and bore it, but right before, they told themselves to remember this injustice done—the way they were ruined until they bled, their insides bruised and swollen, and the half-cocked smile asking if it was good.

They remembered the rising lurch in their throats when it was long past dark and one of them didn’t come home, the night hours moving slow as their eyes stayed steadfast to the door, and when they could wait no longer they joined the search, their hearts full of hope and hurt as they trudged on, until at last they came upon their sons and daughters and saw their necks broken, eyes bulged, bloodstained from their beating and hanged from the branches above.

Or those times of weakness when they smarted back because they could no longer contain their resolve, the seconds between the words escaping their mouths and what came after—the crackerjack strike of the whip against their backs, or if they were lucky a hard slap across the face, but before all this there was the single space of a moment stretched before them between an action and its punishment, between their rising defiance and their forced submission; before the snuff of recognition there stood a brief glimmering moment in which they understood that a person’s hold could not last forever.

Every day for them was the feeling that it could swing another way, followed by the pain of what lay true. For them it was like this, always, and yet always the early morning after, the sight of dawn breaking and knowing there would always be more, more to suffer through, more to resist, more to pull them down, knowing that today is tomorrow is yesterday, it was the fear of believing this was the way it would be, forever and ever amen, and what remained were only the beleaguered days ahead.

But what if when faced again with that space in time they decided to choose another path? This was what they asked themselves—what if we resisted further, refusing to stop? What if we clamored and yelled, fought in every way we could? And what if we weren’t alone? What if it was all of us together rising? Can you imagine it? Can you imagine what we could do?

XV.