Call & Answer

CALL

I am a girl, young

Blushing at my immoral want

For and of sexual freedom

Blushing at my commoditised yet denied sensuality

I am a young woman, weeping

At the burden of right on my shoulders

I weep at the inevitable shame on my face

When I finally tell a tale of two thighs

And escapades unplanned,

And solicited ecstasies.

I weep at the sight of my people's backs

Rigid with contempt.

So, in clandestine corners, sacred altars of the ancestors

The blushing girls and weeping women gather

To call upon timeless matriarchs

In repentance of carrying a blood too clean.

They half appease and half entreat for wisdom

Passed through laboured screams in the dead of night

Unto waiting hands of a woman

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ANSWER

The nectar in your veins was born in my womb

Its boil conceived at Lilith

Burnt kings to ashes and civilizations to history

It gave rise to women of your name.

The spit came

In imperialist ships, preached

Among your people and beaten

Into truth.

Against this we have fought and

Forward you shall also fight.