• You talk to me about your austerity measures
• The need to copyright my past, present and future
• To relieve your financial crisis pressures 
• I have to tighten my belt and work hard 
• For somehow, I have to save the banking system 
• So it can save me and my daily, hard work pleasures
•  
• I am told that the financial architecture is designed 
• So that abundance overflows
• from rich to poor, 
• strong to powerless, 
• man to woman,
• But all I can see in your architecture ... is bad plumbing 
• Clogged pipes everywhere 
• Congested with your investments 
• And my assortment of hard-earned debts
•  
• But you better watch it, for you really can’t beat me
• I’m used to tying your free trade with my free labour
• Your market economy with my care economics
• Your fiscal policy with the welfare of my tenderness...
• But not for you, for those I love...
• And in my love lies my revolution
• So don’t get too comfortable
• Because I am a revolutionary woman
•  
• Did you know of the kind of world that I desire? 
• My fickle warrior heart, and my eyes that shine like fire?
• My dancing step and my strong working hands?
• That knead our freedom together without tire
• My deep wild laughter 
• At the colourful dreams to which I aspire?
• Don’t let my thunderous silence fool you
• For I shall never honour your economic ceasefire
• Don’t get too comfortable
• I’m a revolutionary woman
•  
• I am all too aware that you need me
• Can you survive without my loving free labour?
• Without the royalty of my generous nature?
• Can your empires last one second if I decide to with-hold
• The abundance of my one dollar?
• What if all of us decide to do so?
• What happens to your profits 
• If my womb decides to hibernate
• No more babies for this world
• And no more consumers for this market
• What if I ... decide again to Occupy?
• A new market, a new system, a new justice
• Never forget
• Your power comes from my acquiescence
• To my legion of beloved friends, sisters and mothers
• ‘The street is ours!’...once said an old ancient mama sage
• Its true you know, all it takes nowadays, is one facebook event page
• Let us then see you cower ... under the surge of this woman power
• So don’t get too comfortable
• I’m a revolutionary woman
•  
• Untamed minds and boundless dreams
• Ablaze with all possibilities
• Equality justice and solidarity 
• Connecting our joint bloodstreams
• I pluck the stars and scatter them around us
• Its an old protection ritual for the adventurous
• Be prepared...
• For I know the smell of revolution when its a brewin’
• Don’t get too comfortable...
• ‘Cause in front of me lies, a terrifying bunch, of revolutionary women.

This poem was originally published in Development 55, (September 2012).

Read other articles in the series, 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence 2012.