I wrote this poem back in 2017 but I wanted to breathe some new life into it so I asked my beautiful, amazing, talented friend Denise to narrate it, and I just love it so much more now so I hope you do too.
So cheers to women’s history month; this one is for all the girls🖤
For the love of color, girls
“Start with the eyes. Choose the most soulful brown you can find.
A brown that has been baking in the oven too long,
And smells like sweet tea but burns like dark rum.
Swirl your paintbrush around; add a little black. Or a lot.
But do remember, our eyes are not black.
They are Atlantic-ocean deep; heavy with interrupted, hieroglyphed stories that we must now continue to write.
Eyes lined with gold, twinkling like steel pans in the sun.
Bright. Light. Free.
Lightly sketch our face. Freehand the shape, make the cheekbones dance.
Play with colour. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar; pour molasses.
Caramel, cumin, coffee. Saltwater, sage and summertime.
Create your shade. Create my shade. Create any shade.
They are all our shades.
Fill in our lips. Liberally apply the paint, boldly and without fear.
Fight the instinct to let them fade into the background.
Silence the taunts of “too big”,
In fact, hear the taunts, and paint them bigger,
Bursting with juicy mango goodness and full-bodied truths.
Do not dare paint a smile if there is no reason,
Laugh only if something delights your soul.
Ok now, ladies, grab the tiniest brush of the bunch (and don’t forget your wine!),
Lightly, carefully, coil strands into curls; twist curls into coils.
Over and under, under and over…and over and over.
Paint and sip, paint and sip.
Until the canvas smells of coconut oil and Pink lotion.
Your hand may cramp and spasm; but you must continue.
Oil the roots; I promise it will bloom.
A bag might seem strange, but don’t we women always have a bag?
A black hole of beauty standards, body issues, business ventures and breakups?
A satchel of magic tricks that puts dinner on the table,
and makes food from our breast,
Keeping our hands free as we network, homework, housework, overwork.
This is not that bag.
This is your bag,
To fill with daydreams and wild schemes.
Pretty things, kind things, gentle things, true things,
Whatever inspires you, excites you, and nourishes you.
Visualize its fullness.
Pick it up in your mind.
Hold it with both hands.
You determine its weight. No one else; only you.
Your shoulders, like velvet over steel, may be strong, but you are not the world’s mule.
Add curves.
Make no apologies for our cornbread-fed, jollof rice, flying fish and okra body. Draw carelessly and voluptuously; create fullness.
Or in fact, do not add curves, so they may know that they cannot put us in a box.
That we come in all the shapes and sizes found in nature,
because we are nature personified.
We are the wind, the water, the sun.
Color the sinews and tendons, the vigor and vitality of our legs.
Legs that have travelled to the mountaintop a hundred times, but somehow still must climb.
Use bold brush strokes, because their power should not be underestimated.
Drench them in quiet dynamism, illustrate their energy.
Paint them powerful.
Just a hint of back.
Fit it in somehow, because it would be a pity to hide it,
A travesty to hide a back that has borne far more than it was meant to carry.
A back that has been lashed with angry words, hostile thoughts and destructive acts.
Paint a back which has carried the burdens of generations without complaint—it is no longer our vocation, but they ought not to forget.
A tiny scar that has completely healed, because we are resilient like that.
Now finally, some wings,
otherworldly and relentless.
Sketch feathers in your hair; attach them to your feet,
Let them caress your back.
I cannot tell you where to place your wings, I only know you deserve them.
No, not that we are angels, but goodness, don’t we deserve to fly?”
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