Empress

Ridiculed because I'm a woman
Ridiculed because I'm an African woman
Ridiculed because I chose to use the clays of Africa's muddy waters and only mine own hands to mould myself
I choose to carve myself from the ground up
So that I may know every curving flaw of my body
So that I may know the elements of my soul
So that I may know every twisting, interlocking brace of my crown
That I may know and hold true the virtues that my heart possesses
That I may choose the stars and galaxies that make up my mind
So that mine own fingers may place opals in my sockets
Although the world lets itself into pockets
Weighs me down and tells me to conform;
Tries to rob me of my individuality because it makes the world uncomfortable
My distinction makes the worlds skin crawl
When I walk by the world gawks and cowers against walls
With no shame the world plots to debruise and disinherit me of my independence
Mine own mother says she wishes I was like other girls
The only problem is I never learnt how
Nowhere in the ingredients of my make up can I find the basis of orthodoxy
All I know is that I am a gem of imperial design
That cannot be bought or sold at any price
Yet that does not stop them from trying with every sun rise
They refuse to appreciate that I am what I am, a black woman, because of the perfecting of the sun
And with every rising of the sun, I too will rise unwavering in my pride
Unshakeable in my roots, for I am a Nubian queen
I shall not falter, within me is the power to heal
The power to create and nurture;
For I am the element of spring
And everyday my love will blossom
I do not have it within me to hate but rather;
I will harvest their animosity and temper it to ardency
I cannot let the world break me because it has succeeded before
I bore the worlds demons and every night they had me on the floor
In the dark corners of my room bargaining with myself for my life
Sobbing because my heart had been severed from me
And in its place was a bottomless abyss, whose raw edges throbbed with every sunset
Every night the world would wait until I was alone, to torment and provoke me
To the point where I believed that a blade to my skin was the only way to heal
Today those scars I am deathly ashamed yet simultaneously proud of
They are proof that I won the war, a souvenir from a past life
A life before I was black and majestic
A life before I was a woman and celestial