Play our war drums.

Allow the beats of this body,

these bones

to cover bruises held like a second skin from wars that lay out blue prints imprinted in between our hips.

Brown skin hold black and blues like lost identities and society says

"I wanted it"

Stigmas are injected into flesh,

leaving us paralyzed and sensitive

steady tracing our roots on a rotting family tree

and while licking our wounds find security in words crumbled in fists,

under feet

and on the backs of hands

Which one of us planned to hide from the Big Bad Wolf.

Sheep's clothing holds signs of a militia that wages wars in missionary on the bodies of Congolese women

and after they have taken turns

her husband turns away ashamed

because a woman of “decency” wouldn't have allowed this to happen.

Our vaginas no longer birth babies but taboos.

Take a good look!

This is what it looks like when a woman "Asked for it"

her soul being ripped from tendons left heavy and hanging from a virus that rivered her wrists like lead.

Savagely discarding mothers, daughters and sisters

leaving us bitches,

whores,

paramours?

Isolated and marginalized

We women hide, blame ourselves for what is taken, accept the beatings for refusing to have sex without a condom

Left used by men who have gotten what they came for,

being called a whore must be some kind of position

possessions don't have voices!

Property weren't given choices

and rape in a marriage doesn't exist.

You can't sweep a generation under your rug; the bodies are beginning to smell

Her beauty left dribbling from swollen lips

her intelligence left on white pages

with red ink [POSITIVE],

we are tested,

placed in a box labeled double standard and told to

"Act like a lady"

So for your sake, I hope I remind you of your mother,

and your daughter watches as her skin begins to bruise

cause see we are your greatest resource.

I may have been made from your rib

but We are the backbones of this foundation,

slowly tracing your vertebrates like crumbing bricks!

so be careful…

You wouldn't want all of this to crumble down around you… would you?