Microsoft Word - CE+No+One+Can+Hear+Our+Flag+Waving...+-+Revisions+(1).docx No One Can Hear Our Flag Waving so We Slash It Through the Air Again Again Again Again Again Zoe Wallace, Stanford ‘23 Content warning: This poem does reference sexual violence. Readers are advised to take these into account before proceeding. Dad said not to call again out loud, so I use the inside voice ringing through my brain. 911 how can I hel p? She is staying silent. Her sobs have been quaking in our chests for weeks now please HEL P every morning they shred my sleep like a tattered wife beater. Hello? Miss-- what’s your emergency? Every warning mother gave us fires deep into my throat. When uneven steps kneeling on ground carry her to the roof of my house, I can see her through my window, faceless the reflection of my eyebrow just slightly overplucked, a missing hair in my arch picking and picking and picking and picking at my nerves because it leaves the tail too bare-- a line ready to snap-- my moistened waterline my reddened cheeks the easy slope of my nose sinking into the depth of my cupid’s bow lipstick smudged at the corners of my mouth that opens into a hole just dark enough to hide anything perfect for swallowing salty secrets my lips screwed tight all serving as hers. I’m sorry, Miss-- can you speak up? Tonight is the night i tell her i was there. i apologize. for being paralyzed for so long still, i heard at two a.m. when he sneered no one could. i heard his laughter at her sobs, voice cracking HEL P HEL P HEL P P LEASE a mantra to forget or maybe a prayer, but please forgive me if I can’t understand the god of predators if i can’t hear him in her muffled cries see him through our blurred vision smell him through the gunpowder feel him as bloody entitlement stains my fingerprints Miss-- Slow down. Describe the situation clearly. i am. telling you the sin of believing in Fear that he was watching two stories above like the hawk he is ready to make my face hers i confess i’m urged to close my eyes still. call it a nightmare so vultures can play pretend as i continue to wake to the tears of my God, Her, thundering sobs day after day after day after-- Just tell me where you are. i’m sorry I don’t know street names i wonder if i’m even of any HEL P but i beg you i need HEL P HEL P HEL- i would finish but operator the letter “p” died that night “please” gets us nowhere only plays us into a predator’s fetish for submission so i guess all we have left is HEL Miss-- the police are on their way. Go back to bed. *click* HEL P will they be of any HEL P i think i called too late i called too late waited for someone else to call too late i really did because she is still sobbing on the roof mascara is dripping dried red down her neck or maybe it’s just black or maybe it’s just tears or maybe i can’t see because sirens are too loud annoyed-no-interrupted yells are too loud hurried steps are too loud all i see is red and blue splatter white walls a moment and the walls are yellowed by street lights a moment of silence. and she is still faceless. i must call again i must find the missing pieces of her face or maybe i should break the window she could be in the shards maybe i should walk down the alley two stories down find letters of her name in the garbage maybe Sam Eve or Eva Ems i wonder if the “m” i’ll find points up like “w” or down because i was minutes too late still i will call again dad said not to but i will call again “there’s no point” but i will call again i swear i will call again so please help i will call again i will call again i will call again again again again again and again and again please did you find her i will call again i will call again help i will call again and again and again faster i will call again sooner i will call again and again and again and i want to know again i will call again i need to know again again again is she OK again i will call please i need to know again again again i will call again again is she alive i will call again and again and again and again i will call again so did i kill her i will call again faster this time i will call again again and again and i’m sorry i will call again. Again. Meet the piece: This poem relates to feminism, gender, and sexuality because it not only tackles the constant fear of sexual assault and rape that many women face on a daily basis, but how we owe it to one another to stand by each other in the case it does happen. One night in high school, I was up late and distinctly remember hearing a woman’s cries for help right outside my window. The entire neighborhood was silent except for her pleas and the maniacal laughter of her assailant. Having no one to turn to, I remember not knowing what to do and being afraid that if I called the police, somehow the aggressor would know it was me and seek my family out. I regret debating for so long, but I did end up calling for help. Still, I never found out what happened to her. I wanted so badly to make sure she was okay, but I heard nothing of it in the news and was told the cops wouldn’t release that kind of information. So, there was no point in calling again. This poem is my confrontation with the emotions I felt during and after that night, which I had never truly been able to face before. I was expected to simply accept what happened, all the possible outcomes, and keep it moving. I wasn’t the one harmed, so what was there to be hung up about? This. This piece stands to show what there is to be hung up about. We see the patriarchy manifest in women in many ways, and one of which is through fear. The majority of us have been guilty of being bystanders to someone else’s pain out of fear that if we speak up, we’ll end up facing that same misery. I hope that this poem helps anyone who reads it come face-to-face with their inner bystander, overcome it, and offer a hand to those begging for help just outside their door. Or else, those harmed (especially women, and especially women of color) will be swept under the rug, faceless. And while such anonymity can make it easy to distance oneself, I can no longer help but see my own face in their place.