BLACK WOMAN PLOTTING by VUYELWA MALULEKE

The world seem to think
Black Woman looks more beautiful, screaming.
You ever hear a rose scream?
It sounds like a closed fist eating thorns.
I guess it makes looking away hard.

But I’m mad that mouths do not die like fists
Because in your mouths Black Woman is a door,
And the door can never say
‘today I am tired of being touched, or looked at’
no one gives the door a name
the door can scream and still be dead
But Black woman is not a dead woman
Black woman is not a potion
She is not for your dishes, or your body.

You ever try to bottle flesh,
till it so vexed it smell like you sleeping next to an open grave?
That’s a Black Woman.
Black woman is not arranging her long and hard,
her crossword face,
for you to take photographs and pin up
as ‘Africa’ a six letter word for poor.

Black woman is not starving,
She is eating whatever she wants,
she is eating the couch,
and the table
and the walls
she loud and taking up as much room as she wants.
because Black Woman is not a broom no more or a closet.
she will not lie about where it hurts
(Black woman do not lie about where it hurts.)

Oh, and Black Woman next to a white woman is not a purse
Black woman could eat you without moving her mouth
could keep that secret till she burp you.

Black woman got into your mother,
In the same way you become hers’
The first time her throat bloom with crying,
the first time she pick something up she want and couldn’t have
all the times she walk into a room and it
feel like everyone want to make her the log for the fire

So Black Woman will fight
and Black Woman will cuss
will close her hands and let her knuckles on your face
Because Black woman is not a bridge no more
She is not broken for you to fix

Look at her,
She is sitting for a moment, to count her feet and laugh
and every time that sound eats her neck
Black Woman is plotting
about?

how to love herself.

by Vuyelwa Maluleke  @eveegolds