ME

My day breaks with smells of myself on my lips

Lips licked, sucked dry by lips not unlike mine

I needed to love someone exactly like me in every way

Maybe I’d get to know myself better

Instead of running away

I think I’ll crawl out of bed now, over my lover

Naked and real

I’ll take a shower now just to be alone with me

Hands over breasts over waist over hips down calf muscle to naked toes

Water flows.

I like being a mystery

Having to reach deep inside of me

My fingers never seem long enough to find where I end

Yes, I am perfect in my changing self

I am woman the better half of myself

Many have fallen in love with me

Though not all have liked me

Some scorned me

Labeled me

Slut, whore, bitch, skank, slapper, jezebel

Cut me open

As if bleeding once every month wasn’t enough

And when I couldn’t bleed anymore

They sewed me shut

Made my uterus hard and cruel

She later turned round to blame me for this man-made abuse

Balled her fingers into one big fist

And she beat the maternal instinct out of me

Daily I could feel her tying fallopian tubes, scraping Vagina walls raw, Aborting my resolve

She labeled me infertile

Never ending questions question my fears

And I am left to understand myself as much as you say you do

When you’re cumming, screaming

“Oh my God!”, “Yes Jesus!”, “Selasie I- I –I- I !!!”

My body becomes a religious deity renamed in God’s image

By lips, lips sucked dry, bitten bloody

By my own lips.

I slip my hands between my legs and smell myself

The soap has done its job

I’m clean again

All labels washed away

I’m me again

No straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, Christian, Rasta, Buddhist, Revolutionary, spokeswoman for the masses!!

Just a human being herself.