Laying with eyes wide open, I know every CRACK and every corner of my bedroom ceiling.
Again I am here in the sticky heat awake, frustrated, yearning for what, I don’t quite know.
I am thirsty, but there is never enough water to quench it.
These past few months I have connected with something; strands like DNA.
Very deep inside, it rolls around and around and whilst overwhelming, manages to also feel like a long, slow, torturous burn.
Something is growing within me.
I cannot explain nor quantify this deep radiating pulse, down low in my belly. It is an ache and it roars.
Hormone chemicals swirling slowly before finally dying off.
I never want this feeling to die off. To SNAP away.
Perhaps because I currently have my own body back after so long, all to myself. Here in the dark, as the skin perspires.
HOLD UP.
SLOW DOWN.
This body is all mine.
It is not my husbands, nor my doctors. It does not belong to my family and their expectation on it. It does not bow down to Government or religious acquiesce.
It is all mine and I am suddenly very aware of what it means to be WOMAN.
The (Alchemist). The Survivor. The Goddess.
My body does not lay here for anyone but me.
I now see truth. Hidden from it for so long because of men, and fear and shame.
There is so much complexity to my body and what it can do. Glorious and powerful.
(I slay).
I can do anything, and I no longer feel ashamed of any inch of it, how could I possibly?
I faced it all and my BODY did not let me down. It did what it has done for centuries. As the blood came and life dropped and swirled around the porcelain, so did all my doubts. My fears.
I am a woman; so strong.
My breasts fill themselves when the time comes to feed sons and daughters, I felt them stretch and burn as blood vessels thumped and life unfurled all within me.
They aren’t for bikinis or on top of billboards or laying over sports cars…they are the earth and the sun; the key to life and I hold it all here, right now.
I know weak men fear this.
We all marched and we awakened.
Everything is different now.
Snapped.
My eyes have been bound for so long, the bandages have now fallen. Senses heightened.
Awakened.
Is it because of all that I felt in my womb. The stretching, the electricity. Perhaps a son? Perhaps a daughter?
A daughter.
What would I want her to know as I lay here, watching the blades of the fan, as they one by one stroke the heat along my bent back.
I would want her to understand first, her POWER.
She is everything. The beginning the middle and the end. All between her 2 hips. Her head. Her worth.
I would want her to know if anyone tries to weakly strike it from her, that she should inflate herself and fight for what she is. All that she is.
I want her to know she is so much more than her body. But yet all that she is - is contained in that pulsing skin and own it proudly she must.
I don’t want words like pretty and beautiful and lean and sexy to touch her young ears. I don't want a tiny orange cheeto hand on her forehead pushing her back down. Crumpled.
She should know we had marches. That there will be marches till the end of time to fight for everything inside that flesh to remain only hers. Her brain, her womb. Her (PUSSY).
She should never have to know what it feels like to have men’s hands claw at her limbs, her body as they try to rip her clothes from her and force her down.
But if she did she would let out a thunderous roar in the face of such dangers, breathe fire and break fingers and scratch eyes and remind demons she is POWER.
Why was I asleep for so long. Why is it only now that this all churns and burns.
Nobody can feed you like I can. (HOLD UP)
No one can quench your thirst like I can.
Remember that.
I know now.
Emma Kate xoxo
(To B, for reminding me of my power while drowning in pain).
