you wrote anyway
Abhilasha Ghosh
july 25th, 2025
you were told
writing was a man’s terrain—
ink too heavy, thought too sharp
for your soft hands.
so you wrote anyway.
you became george eliot
when mary ann wouldn’t be taken seriously.
they admired your mind
but never called it yours.
you were the brontë sisters,
signing as currer, ellis, and acton bell—
three pens dipped in restraint,
writing women with thunder in their hearts.
you were ismat chughtai,
on trial for obscenity
because you dared to speak of women
as if we had bodies
and stories
and agency.
you were christine de pizan,
arguing with dead philosophers in the 1400s,
building a city of women
while the world tried to burn it down.
you were savitri bai phule,
carrying chalk like a sword,
spitting in the face of caste and patriarchy
with every lesson you taught a girl.
you were elisabeth vigee le brun,
painting and writing through revolutions,
surviving exile with a brush and a spine.
you were madame de staël,
banished by napoleon
for being smarter than he could stand.
you turned your exile
into a library.
you were sor juana inés de la cruz,
writing plays and poems in a convent in mexico,
hiding brilliance in lace and latin.
you gave up writing—
they said it was your choice.
you and i both know it was surrender
in silk.
you were marina tsvetaeva,
writing poems that blistered like prophecy
while the soviet air turned cold around your mouth.
you were anna akhmatova,
smuggling words through iron bars
as your lovers and sons disappeared.
you were sylvia plath,
and they romanticized your death
before they honored your craft.
you left poems like razors
on every bathroom tile.
you were virginia woolf,
handing every woman a room of her own,
while your own mind became too loud
to live inside.
you were octavia butler,
writing the future
because the present refused to hold you.
you were nawal el saadawi,
telling the truth of women’s bodies
and being cast out for it....
