By Chanda Bynum

 

I see this girl

And she is a girl with straightforward eyes and blank expressions.

The Maker has sculpted curvaceous hips and thighs into her gene pool

Complete with a butt and breasts

But he never thought of how this would play on her insecurities

 

Play

In the playgrounds of her mind

Swinging from monkey bars of uncertainty

Sliding down slides of self-consciousness

Tagging each other

Whispering in her ear “You’re it”

 

She is tagged

Marked by her butt and her breasts

Branded by her hips and her thighs

This is all they see

 

Single as can be

Because no guy would want “we”

Without these

Hips and thighs

And ass and tits

Excuse my vulgar language

But didn’t you hear?

I’m tagged

I’m it

 

Knocked with wolfish shouts and catcalls of the men that surround me

“Damn, look at that ass!”

“Fuck that! Look at them lips! I bet you she cold on her head game!”

DON’T

 Try and silence me

I’m aware

This is all they see

 

 

The head that sits on my shoulder

Might as well be severed and discarded

All these illiterate fools can read

Is the slide in my legs

The switch in my hips

Motions that come with the territory

To these males

I am my body

 

Sometimes I wish I was flat

Pancaked

In the front and the back

Just to see if the eyes that cut over my body

Would bother to draw blood

Over an underdeveloped one

 

Would those stinging eyes

Bother to leave dirty bruises on my skin

Would they bother to spit some ole’ floozy shit to me?

Just to see if they could get with me

Steal my innocence

Then hang me by my panties

 

“I bet you can suck some good dick.”

Sitting at work

At the front desk

These are the words that I look up to.

“I’m sayin’ doe; your lips are big as fuck. You ever suck dick before?”
 

That is what he asked me

Those are the words that punched me in my gut

I washed my hurt under the faucet of a smile

Because that is what I had to do

 

I wanted to rip my lips off

I wanted to bury them so far in my stomach

They’d dissolve in the acids of my insides

I was ashamed

Defending myself doesn’t matter

Cuz’ either I cuss him out or go do what he thought I had to

I know he preferred the latter

He wanted me to climb down the ladder of respect

Get on my knees

And do what

These lips must be made for

 

I just want to cover up

I want to feel safe

And secure

In this body the Maker gave me

But I can’t help

Feeling like I’ve been cursed

With these round mounds

That feed lust

In the eyes of men

 

 I can’t trust them

They won’t know me

Because the first thing I’ll communicate to them

Is my body

 

Blinded by the image in front of them,

They can’t see what’s under my skin

A beautiful mind

Bigger than my rear end

Wise-cracking lips

Goofiness plays hide and seek under my eyelids

I am more than the layers of skin covering my bones

 

More than long legs and thick thighs

I am a writer

Passionate words dive from my brain onto paper

I am a sister

Who is loved and cared for

Me

I am Me.

My billboard is more than colors and words

It cannot be scrapped or written over

It is me

Not these humps riding my back and my front

Those who care

Will pull out the road map

And discover the adventure to me

Then will I be visible