This Is How We Become Statistics.
Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash
and this is how we become statistics
they hold up our legs at birth
saying prayers of consolation
for once again
it is a girl.
and we become offerings
at the altar of lifelong servitude
wringing us on the cloth lines
of eternal sacrifice
our insides dry up faster than
starched linen in harmattan
just like dust
we fly away forgotten, nameless and faceless
left alone with only hush stories
living in our chests like banana leaves
they are unwrapped to be quickly discarded.
they seal our lips so tight
leave us with crooked corners
made for the sole purpose
of singing along to the tunes
of scriptured men
who perform on us
the first act of violence
who tell us
that the vessel we think is ours
is not for us
was not for us
could never ever be for us.
and to god alone be the glory
our bodies are sites of contracts
taken away from our first breath
shame shoved deep within us
on a stage where bedeviled
gatekeepers of chastity
repeat monologues
of a woman’s worth
of a husband’s right to stained white sheets
of the audacity of cheap broken hymens.
so when they come
after this orchestra of blame
sometimes catcaller, bus conductor, market men
mostly partner, cousin, pastor, uncle, teacher
inscribing hieroglyphics of sin unto our skin
we engage in a dance of mindful forgetfulness
for encoded in our dna are the age old lores of woe
“you are stained no one would marry”
“you carry the language of broken things”
“you embody a discarded melody of abandoned mangoes”.
but this is how we stop other women
from being the 1 in 3 women
focus of a un women report
from being the 2 in 3 women
subject of a gender studies journal at Wellesley
from being front story
of the sunday paper
eyes covered in a black dash
words like defiled tainting
the puritan air with the acrid
smell of things left for rotten
say sexual history on full display
say a pending courtcase
written to the solicitors of
asking for it and company.
we stop other women cause we
we who have the audacity
to tell the water our voices
were baptized in it
we come back to take
take back the names
we were forced to drop our names.
we who are the reincarnation
of gods renounced for
the white man’s promises
we anoint our bodies
in honey and saltwater.
we who invoke life into dusty effigies
we call our bodies new names
say they are blessed
say they are holy
say they are divine.
we call the parts of us
they said we could never own
by their names
we call the clit
say you were never meant to be cut.
we call the vagina
say you were never a thing to hide at age six.
we call the nipple
say you belonged to us before
debates about a husband or baby began.
we call the thighs
say you are the history of the women before us.
here is how we shall heal
again & again & again
holding the sun to ransom
until it pours light unto
the dark crevices of our souls
no longer screaming at night
no longer crouching pillows drenched in sweat
but offering prayers
to a god as woman
and as tender
and as lush
and as gloriously gloriously radiant
as us.
Ise.