I wrote this poem after receiving my stickers from REDBUBBLE, most/all of my new stickers being about race, religion, mental health or feminism. My Mother gave me one of those mother looks and asked why everything needs to be a statement.
My mother likes to say that I have made my life a statement.
That letting my tongue fly free in the midst of misogyny
has made me
a statement.
That screaming for too many lost lives at the hands of policemen,
that wearing the flag of my people, not my country,
that daring to love someone for the depth of their mind
and not the size of their behind
has made my life
a statement.
People like to tell me to wrap my tongue up in cotton
let it dry out, slur and slow
so that I may become more temperate
choking me with my “statements”
to make it easier for you to swallow.
like the hair that doesn’t cover my ears,
the mind that cant handle my fears,
and the eyes that are drowning in tears
aren’t already made into your statements.
I do not have the option of wearing those shorts on a date,
for fear that they will be mistaken as a request to be raped,
And Good God! Isn’t that a STATEMENT!
My life has been made a statement
My sexuality has become appropriate dinner conversation
My wrist has become a canvas for my silenced statements
And I am done being quiet
