just a girl justwrite

I want to cry with you,
teach your tears how
to belong to the world,
to the hands that grab
at your breasts,
trying to tear them away
from your soul.
I see your wishes, the ones you send
through your thatched roof,
through your television screen,
through the cinder blocks in your walls.
I am old now,
you say.
It's not important if my life was happy,
you say.
I just hope things are better
for my daughters and their daughters,
you scream, their laughter
rising faster than your words.

I let the water soak
into my hips when it rains, the grass
clinging to my naked feet
as I urge my bends to grow,
the ones they try to iron away
with burning sticks, scare
with heat and scars
into staying within my body, reminding me
of how new and chaste and ignorant
they want me to be.
I strut instead,
all waist and hips
and the hanging skin on my arms
that you try to cut away so
you can sew it over my lips
or tell me to do it myself
since sewing is a woman's job.

When they plant their seed
inside us, we will turn it to our own,
recreate ourselves
in our own image,
sagging breasts
hanging light on our spirits
and dirt heavy between our toes,
sow the Earth with women
unfolded across pages,
carving wood into a brand new Venus
with five arms all signing
how important each one is.
I will tuck myself into the sky
and claim the world, give it all to you
before I realize
you've had it all along
and that's why they've been so scared,

and when your tears fall
onto the ground,
we name the goddesses
who sprout from them.