A Black Feminist

Image: Canva

I’m told 

To wear longer skirts 

And lower my gaze

When grown men come to this home.

Sit properly!

Adults command

As if that ever stops an older man’s wandering eyes.

And even when I tell my Mama

Of the way men look at me

She tells me that it was my fault

That my head should have been covered

And my hanging breasts bound

To look like nothing more

Than mandarins

Not the large mangoes

That swing from my chest.

She tells me all these things

And leaves that word 

Whore

Hanging in the air 

Between us.

They told me too

Good girls don’t stay out late

As if I’ve never had to sprint

From men who followed me home

In broad daylight.

I’m told too

To never capture a man’s attention

As if that stopped boys

From loudly flirting 

Within classrooms

While teachers did nothing but think

This invasion and public humiliation

Was young puppy love.

So when they ask

Why a black woman would be a feminist

I tell them

I was a whore before I was a woman

Adults looked at my young black body

At the curves I fought and hated

And saw a whore in the making

Though I avoided boys like the plague

And wrote love poems for girls

I thought would make good friends.

But men eyed me

Where they patted my white friends

On the head like cute babies

While thinking of all the things

To do to my young black body.

So they thought me a whore 

Before I ever became a woman

Thus

I am a black feminist

As they taught me

Ain’t no one gonna fight for me

Like I can.

by Sanaa Mirz

Follow Sanaa’s Instagram

❀