Woman

She gave her body to him.

She had come to trust him.

He had been attentive and has persevered for three months now.

I mean, he showed up late a couple of times, but he made up for it eventually.

She let him into her secret place. A place that no man had ever been. It’s not that others hadn’t tried. But he was different from them, well at least until that day. That day she fell onto the bathroom floor like spilled water. Because just like water her emotions were all over the place and she couldn’t keep it in. The test had two lines, there was no doubt about it. She just had to tell him, he would make her feel better.

“How can I be sure that it’s my baby?”

Each word that came out of his mouth was like a dagger, and her heart was the target.

See, the thing about pregnancy is that only one person can run away from it. Because even when an abortion is performed, her womb will forever have a tombstone. And every time she lays down her head to sleep at night she weeps because the funeral replays in her head. And there’s no one to hold her hand because even after the abortion she couldn’t seem to keep him around. Too much had happened and the events that followed that day on the bathroom floor had left her a different person.

For months afterwards she wondered if he was having nightmares too. She couldn’t ask him though. They had since become strangers and she could not bring herself to reveal a part of herself again to this man, this man that promised to be there. She couldn’t imagine being vulnerable in front of him again but he was the only one who might have the slightest idea of how she feels every morning when she tries to get out of bed but her bed grows hands that grab at her every limb and force her back into bed. How the weights around her ankles slow down her pace everywhere she goes, but she finds a way to move on.

She forgives herself for crushing her seed before it had a chance to grow. She forgives herself for opening up her body, first to make herself one with him, and second to get rid of the remains of her seed. She will never get rid of the tombstone, but it is a reminder to her that her body is not only capable of pleasure but it is a fertile ground of opportunities.  Ground too sacred to be stepped on by just any feet. She learned that one of the things that made her powerful was the fact that she could grow a human being from scratch, and that her hips had the ability to separate themselves while they ushered in new life.

Woman! You are more than play time on the sheets and eyebrows on fleek. You are woman. There are things that come at you every day that tell you to be a man. To grow a tough skin. To be argumentative. To not delight in staying at home and taking care of the kids. And I’m not saying that you HAVE to do that I’m just saying that you’re so much more than what they tell you you are.

The world would never attack you if you weren’t powerful. It would never attack you if you weren’t capable of influencing generations of people with the truth. It would never attack you if what you have to offer isn’t a force to be reckoned with. Woman! Can’t you see?! You are an army of ten thousand in one, able to protect your children with every breath that comes out of you. You are the faculty of health sciences, a nurse to your children, a psychologist to your friend, a cardiologist for broken hearts, and OT for your household. You are minister of home affairs, the hostess with the mostess. And your words build characters of men who respect women, and women that don’t have to wait for a man to tell them that they are beautiful when the truth stares them in the face every morning in the mirror. Woman!

Out of the side of a man you were created. A rib you once were, but notice how one rib cannot protect the heart and the lungs alone. A team of ribs hold hands to protect the heartbeat and breath of an organism. You were not created to stand alone. The day they won is they day they pitted us against each other. Yellow bone vs Bone marrow. Skinny vs Curvy. Dragging each other onto street corners to fight over a man that didn’t take care of either of your hearts. Woman! We were made to stand together. Stand together like I tell you that your outfit is beautiful and you tell me where you got it because even me I want to look good. Stand together like I take care of your kids while you go for a day at the spa, or while you go to school to get your second degree because you have brains too! Woman! We were made to be sisters from different misters. Building each other up instead of tearing each other down.

The world would never attack you if you weren’t powerful. It would never attack you if you weren’t capable of influencing generations with the truth. It would never attack you if what you have to offer isn’t a force to be reckoned with. Woman!