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UNOMA AZUAH
THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD
I can't sleep tonight…
My ovaries are set on a war of fire and stones
It's been a night of wishes and dry pain
a night of silent phones and shortened cords
Painkillers are sucked up in the storm that is my womb
I am a woman with succulent but un-suckled breasts--
each drop of pain -a drop of milk fermented.
The lips that taste the pain and pleasures these mounds house, I pick.
And this night is a night of absent tongues and fingers, forgotten
A night buried in a cackle of thunder and rain
...as a lightening flashes
the shadow of death hunches in a corner like a wet rock.
And I refuse to WooMAN
Dear uterus, if it takes only the sprouting of seeds
to quieten you down, then rage on--
You are a garden I possess--
I pick and choose the crops I grow…
If any.
ALIEN.
If I were a captive
trapped in the lace of my skin
I would break away like the crust of a caterpillar
and fly like a butterfly.
But I am a captive trapped in the minds of a race
--a swinging rope in the circus of circumstance.
If I were a captive trapped in the lace of my skin
I would break away like the sprouting of a seed
and dwell in a new world.
But I am trapped in the claws of a beast
ravishing the world from the cold.
The winds fool me
I break away from the crowd
set on a trail to trace hoarded treasures.
But my legs scurrying like a spider's
anticipating a crush from the master's boot.
If I were a captive in the race of my skin
I would bleach my life white and strut like a peacock.
But I am trapped in the minds of a race.
THE STORM YOU ARE.
I feel the flutter of her lashes on the nape of my nerves-
the feel of feathers ruffling in the wind--
I feel her hands on my frame
--the shape of my name
She is the apple I want to pluck-
the tendril I need to nurture
I feel the tickle in her toes-
the sensation of fingers on trickling sands
I envy the earth that gives her life
for I want to be the soil grasping her roots
the sunlight that leaves her wide open for more-
The breeze filtering through her branches--
the dew kissing her pores--
the air that makes her complete
I feel the flutter of her lashes
Her breath-- a whisper in a raging storm.
Oh bearer of the storm that has refused to ebb on the banks of my overflowing river-
Set me free!
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