Womanhood

I am safe.
So I sit by a moonlit window
And exult in the night,
Its magic coat
Of starlight and shadow,
It is an oasis of beauty
In my frenetic day,

As I write this.
I am safe, and that makes me free.
I am still whole
I am still unravaged,
In fundamental ways.

I have lived
With a million compromises,
A thousand times
Of being shortchanged
For no reason but being me,
Of listening politelyTo absurd intrusive questions
That have no sensible answers.
All this I have accepted
As the price tag of womanhood.
But I am alive and grateful.

The fact that parts of my body
Or even worse-my daughters’ body
A vagina or breasts,
Or another orific
That purveyors of porn enjoy,

Have not been my dismantling
Or my death sentence,
Makes me grateful.
Grateful too for

I have the words,
The words to record my passage,
Their shambolic setting
Reflecting the weight
Of my life, on my tongue,
Mine- And a common womanhood’s
To celebrate and expurgate.
Yet i am certain.

In every life
I will ask you
God of Everything
And Supreme Nothingness,

I would like to be born
A woman again
And again.

Entirely with
All the dizzying fragments:
Eyes lips hair skin

Form & sway together,
And the secret parts-

The unsuspected parts-
Of brain and brawn
And blind courage.
It cannot but be better

Than now,
And i do not wish
For easy privilege
For fatuous entitlement.

I want to be here
Part of and witness to
Every change
Every bastion that crumbles.

My glee in that tomorrow gives me
Added breaths even in
This poisonous today.

The submission is a part of the International Women’s Day Celebration 2022 by Rhyvers Media Group