OBAA BONI

I never said I was innocent
You’re looking at me like I’m less of a woman now
Now that somehow my skeletons lost allegiance and fled their air tight closets
Now that they spill my humanness like running faucets
and you thought you could wash your hands clean with my filth.
You’re looking at me like your favourite flower’s begun to wilt
Like the perfectly aligned portrait of me on your wall threatens to tilt
The one where my docility strangles the breath out of my truth
and left fingerprints on its throat
You’re mad I’m no longer the longing your macho has built.
You’re looking at me like I should be entitled to your opinion
Like my mouth is a stale recovery unit for frail beliefs eaten out by the cancer of your ego
Did you not get the memo that I’m nobody’s minion?
I have learnt how to bass my voice in the choir of the mute
Untamed my mane, there’s a jungle in my name, let’s hear you call this roar cute
I have learnt to stop pretending like I don’t bleed
Stopped shaming myself for staining clothes and sheets
Stopped ripping the price tags off the very thing that gives worth to your seed
I have learnt to own my body and you’re still looking at me like I owe you an ‘I’m sorry’
Maybe I do
For all the generations that fuelled your expectations, but
Way too many women wake up carrying apologies in their bearings
Crushed under the burden of the obedience society be yearning
We’re all mad as fuck about something but you’re more mad that I be swearing
It may be late for many but my best friend just had a baby girl so for her the revolution’s come early
Early could’ve come sooner for the girls who learnt to get by with a sleeve full of tricks
Judged by a society that equates her to her pussy but separates a man from his dick
They’re quick to call her a whore or a bitch
Often using the Bible to berate like we all don’t worship the same God
Toning the guilty in their skins, sugar coating their sins,
like we all won’t be flogged by the very same rod
They call out bad women like being a woman is something we get to be good at
Undetectably scoring us points to inevitably define us
Marriage…score.
Motherhood…score
But get dedicated to anything non-domestic, well, that’s a minus
Preach submission and get hailed but throw in some independence to the equation and suddenly you’re a virus
Well, I hope this poem infects every cell and multiplies itself like a stone cold survivor
I see you still looking to me
My perfumed confidence coming off as an overwhelming stench
You’re hoping I revert into your image of good girl convenient
But look to the beginning
I have never been that kind of innocent.