Florence Wanjiku is an exceptional writer with a voice that cannot be matched. She is purposeful in her presentation with her work and she is also rather explicit with details. When she emailed me finally (we’d talked previously about her being a writer for A Cornered Gurl) to say she was ready to jump aboard, I had to hide my insane amount of giddiness. I mean, truth be told, I’ve got a writer’s crush on her words, so I am happy to host them in ACG. Florence’s debut piece, “A black woman’s body” (is vogue) is killing it on Medium and I am sure it’ll do the same here as well. So, without further ado, Ms. Wanjiku, everyone . . .
A black woman’s body
is vogue
They manufacture parts
of a black woman’s body.
Place her under knife and chain
and watch how naturally anesthetic she is.
A dose of her melanin eludes pain, suffering,
and loss
The attraction to her otherness
has always been so intoxicating
Her soil forms the earth
making mountains, deserts
and streams places in which her
body has traveled
or being left to dry when she can’t
ward off bees for wanting to colonize
and steal her nectar.
Her body will put women under knife and pain
just to look like her
Her lips didn’t always seem so appealing
but of late they make billionaires out of lip kits
Her skin didn’t always seem so appealing
but of late makes economies
out of spray tans and tanning salons.
Her body has been hated, paraded, used and abused
It was once used to justify why black women
don’t make Vogue
but now, they are Instyle,
they are the Covergirl.
Now, they manufacture parts of a black woman’s
body and place them as crowns on others.
Originally published in A Cornered Gurl via Medium.
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