Poetry
Related: About this forumMy Identity is Not in your Mouth
Your definition is not for
my liberation
for every time I've been defined
it was to leave pieces
of myself behind
and make boundaries where
I could not be.
No one has any right
to go around
defining me.
Define the shape of my lotus feet
and narrow me with whalebone.
Tell me I need to be escorted
with some kind of chaperone.
Deny me banking--
deny me cars.
Give me a separate entrance
into bars.
Deny me jobs, bastardize my kids--
these are the results of the
"defining" you did.
Choked with a halo,
burdened by wings--
women have been circumscribed
by the definition of our things.
The size of our breasts,
the cut of our lips,
the swell of our asses
and the width of our hips--we've been
callipered to excess for
our callipygyny by scientific tongs
and measured like
an anatomy of wrongs.
Our literal clitori a mystery, our G-spot a
Shangri-la, our existence supposed to be
babies,
who knows whatever else for?
Don't ask the definition of
what you would rather not even face--
Human.
Just fucking human.
And don't get me started on race.
Scruffy1
(3,418 posts)It's already got a backup track in my mind.
LoisB
(8,639 posts)BlueMTexpat
(15,496 posts)But am showing my ignorance about "callipygny." Google can't find it for me.
The closest I can find is "callipyge" (FR) - translated in English as "callipyge" - and described in French as "Qui a de belles fesses" (who has a nice butt).
It is most often used in French to describe the Greek goddess Venus ("la Vénus callipyge" ).
So it is definitely appropos here. Love the way you use it.
Thanks for the lessons!
Spintocat
(9 posts)I want to share this with friends but won't if I can't give it appropriate credit!
I say "yes, yes, and yes!" to this!
vixengrl
(2,686 posts)Spintocat
(9 posts)this! Absolutely righteous.