Submissions by BlackMushroom

I used to love hearing the sound of the swishing trees
As they swayed and writhed, dancing in the fierce wind during the early hours of the morning.

But tonight I realise I was mistaken.

The wind was not fierce – it was furious.
My sacrilege was as treacherous as calling an angry, black womxn “fierce” or “sassy”
When she was furious at the system which would surely kill her if she was anything but.

The wind is furious because we let you down – it tears itself apart with fury at our injustice.

I look around at the masses who have come to share...

I grew up in a time where girls were thought so lowly that they could ask to be raped

Not grown women with breasts firm with ripening of age
But little girls who drew squiggles for letters and whorls for numbers still
Close your legs, do you want to get raped? Our mothers shouted.
Will you not wear your tights under those shorts? Who are you trying to invite?

So I grew up with my body belonging to men whose faces and names I did not know
For it was for their comfort and convenience that I wore leggings with my summer dresses
My lipstick a shade lighter...

I struck the board and cried.
Shall I ever forgive? Stop mourning
For the loved ones lost to the wrath of his fathers?
Whiplash stripes.
Chain and Shackle scars.
Maimed. Broken. Crushed.
Could I? Should I? Would I?

But ALAS! In that moment all was forgiven.

Straddled closely, his electric pulsing defibrillating my broken heart
Fingers as light as a feather brushing aside my silent tears
With velvet-like lips he caressed all the scars.
My Poseidon, summoning Floods
As though to Purge all the White Man’s sins ...