Don't get me wrong;
That female body is divine,
That female body is beyond anything
Our wildest imaginations could've created:
The bend of her ribs and hips,
And the sharp turns
Of the lips,
The softness in her ashy legs
And the fault lines at her heel
Quietly sealed between
Days of loving herself
And nights of loving her
Flesh,
Wrapped in little clothes her mother knitted herself;
A present of
Outward Protection,
Her flesh
Nuzzled at her chest
As she paces him to sleep
Bare feet on hard, cold floors
Tapping softly
As her flesh
Grows every minute the child rests
With her natural gifts flowing in
Little vessels;
Her present of
Inward Protection.
Everything is an act of protection
She protects him,
And she reads about other women
In the same position:
Bloated bodies, diminishing souls,
Gifts they can barely hold in their arms
With all the hard running
Bank, work, gym
Pitying them, pitying them intensely,
She knows how hard it is to rid these
Bodies of extra weight,
Rid them of permanent marks,
Bid them farewell in an attempt
To set back the biological watch
Make the growing stop.
But that female body is divine,
Our wildest imaginations could not have created it
So why should limited minds
Define its beauty?
Why should limited minds that do not see the divinity
In every fold of flesh
In every curve and in every healthy
Natural dent telling happiness
Have a say in what isn't even theirs?
She does not kill herself to beautify
A space of rent
She does not kid herself or lie
Her time spent is the currency worth
Fussing over
Mountains decay
So, what should a vessel of clay have to complain about?
The maker of the vessel had great taste,
So she never questioned it anyway.
She grew tired of the voices
Stealing through boxes
And words slipped between lines and
Images hidden in plain view
Brazenly behind a well disguised smile
Of a glazed model's look:
Everyone talks of that look,
Everyone notices that look,
But despite the despise shown for the glaze,
She saw they very same people
Swallow diet pills dry
Everyday,
And standing on scales
Broken with the weight of heavy tears
And heavy, heavy hearts
And very empty stomachs
Tainted with the smell of flushed bile
And hidden shame
Of a stomach that refuses to lie flat
Flat is a synonym for tasteless
She jokes
When there is room for more
She takes it
She refuses to be smaller or spaceless
And she hates it when
Limited minds impose themselves
On her own definition of
Her religion
Of her thoughts
Of her mind
Dismissed countless of times
When their eyes roamed over
What she did not want them to see
What she had covered comfortably
Don't get me wrong, but
That female body is mine
Only I decide whether you can
Acknowledge but not look
Look but not touch
Touch but not hold
Hold but not break down
With your eager eyes and hungry hands
And inquisitive mind
Until such time permission is granted
That female body, created by the Most Divine
Given to me,
That
Is mine.
So don't get me wrong
When I tell you
To keep your nose out
Of my Egyptian cotton headscarf
Covering both
Failed experiments and bad days
And a photo shoot-worthy display of God's blessings
You can choose to appreciate
Or respectfully look away from
My mother's henna dyed hair
Healing from the darker, harder days
In to whiter, lighter years
And my sister's
Bare neck
Swelling slightly with every limb that strengthens
To hold a growing soul in a growing belly
There are some things we like to share,
Some we keep to ourselves.
------
October Poetry: in the style of April Poetry (U.S. National Poetry Month),U.K's poetry month is October.
Personal Mission: 31 days, 31 poems.
Challenge Accepted.