Our stretch marks
Our cellulite
The grit
The grind
We deal with the inequities
But we never let it break us
Your beauty standards are a joke
Take center stage
The breaths we suppress
Tears we hold back
It’s an act of resistance
-easmith
I wrote this with a plethora of things running through my mind. It is raw. It is pure. It is here.
A day for you. A day for me. A day for US. Yes us.
This day is for the women with complexities, dreams, goals, sternness, happiness, friendliness, bossiness, ratchetness, boldness, and those all around blessed. The ones who believe and won’t. The ones who know a God and don’t. The ones who wear labels and those who don’t. This is a moment to reclaim what they tried to strip away. To the ones who fight for us and the ones who stand on a mountain top and the shoulders of ancestors screaming that we must all be freed. This day doesn’t celebrate the women who alienate others because of differences, the ones upset because their slayage ain’t yours. This day is for the ones who know we all need to win, but realistically know that it has not and will not happen overnight because, you know…society.
For the blood shed, the children birthed, the ones calling out the racists and sexists like roll call before the bell rings. The ones who are sex workers, the ones who identify as queer, the trans women, the fat ones, the skinny ones, the rich, and the poor. To the women and young girls that can’t afford a Chanel purse but rock an knockoff or XO bag just as proud. To the ones dodging war to make sure their families eat. Fighting for life by watching everyone sleep. For the women doing this with one eye open every night. He body weakened by the lack of sleep but strengthened with the reassurance of her family’s safety for yet another night. The ones told this is a man’s world but not realizing there would be no man if we did not possess the womb. To the women with wombs unable to to carry life, the wombs hunted by pain but their ability to push through.
This day honors those on the front of the bus and those forgotten on the back. The field workers picking overpriced fruit purchased in luxury stores and our astrophysicists marked by the word “hidden” when they were never lost. To the women who love stardom, glitz, and glam. The hood women who use their bodies as cultural expressions and dance…they are art. This day is for the women covered in cultural garb as we must remind ourselves to ask to be granted permission to look in their soul via their eyes. This is for the ones told stay in their lane and yet, we swerve all fucking day because that is what a woman does. For those left alone to raise children. For those who have no mother. For those who have no father. For those who love both parents and those who resent them both. For the women in politics waiting for votes, the women who can’t scream because they begin to choke. For the women who find joy in disappearing, for the loud, for the ones waiting to be seen. To the women questioning the purpose of crossing their legs, wearing heels, lover of sneakers, haters of pink, lovers of flowers, need of space, lip gloss only, or a full beat face. To the ones who love the sweet taste of curse-words as sentence enhancers and those who have the souls of the sweetest nectar. For the ones who love wine and the others who brush their teeth with Hennessy. For the ones waiting on wedding bells and soft kisses, and the women waiting for their paychecks and payoffs.
We women are different. We women are strange. We women are women.
This is for the pain.
This is for the joy.
This for every story we know and the ones that die with the authors we had yet to meet.
This day is for you.
Happy International Women’s Day.
+Magically Yours,
Ellise
