Poem on #Rape: For Her by Fatou Wurie (@theFatoublog)

Left on the sidewalk to cascade heated tears so hard it made sun skip shine for the day. 

This poem is for the girl who is too thick, so slick, to thin, to smart, to pretty, too un-pretty too colored, too black, too white, too brown, too woman all too soon. 

This poem is for the girl whose front tooth like the future that lies between the past and present stood gaped and half full. 

This poem is for the girl whose color was too dark like the marmite spread her mama would saturate on white bread, 

Her mahogany skin not wanted

Shunned in the nicest way possible 

Exotic but not normal Tolerated but not honored

Accepted but not loved

This poem is for her bleached dreams. 

– 

These words are for the girl whose body was too supple and refined

a girl’s soul cased in a woman’s body 

as he rubbed himself on her insiders 

softly at first, leisurely as he pleasured him self-only.

Kneaded her tits like bread-dough,

divided her legs like the second coming of Moses between red waters for his pleasure-only. 

– 

This poem is for girl whose front teeth stood imperfectly gaped.

Scriptures drawn across her brown skin. 

We mocked her un-beauty-ness, 

Unconventional. 

We robbed her of her smile, her confidence, her sense of self, her roots. 

Her malnourished spirit became the slate onto which we poured our own insecurities, 

and so she belies and belittles herself 

because we did not mirror her beautiful back to her. 

Now she does not smile wide and bright, 

she stands a little crookedly, just like her front teeth. 

– 

This poem is for the girl, 

This poem is for that girl, 

This poem is for this girl. 

This is for the girls. 

Girls, 

Girls. 

Because we do not say it enough,

Because we do not say it loudly,

Because, sometimes, we do not say it at all,

So we start today in this lyrical delivery.

You are beautiful,

You are beautiful,

You beam this light on our shadows, 

You king, 

You are beautiful Girl….