Anybody who knows me knows
When I get serious about something
I tie my hair back like a black ribbon
This is an elegy to all the things
We become before we're done becoming women
One: Elegy for the freshman girlfriend
whose optimism was buttermilk
at the breakfast table
turned sour by a boy for whom my face
wasn't pretty in the way he preferred
So I baked my body into a buffet
A pie he could cut into, sample
take a slice of what he liked
Eyes like flies
All the maggoted compliments I swallowed
because somewhere this must be a delicacy
and somewhere I must be really really lucky
Though, not Christian enough to pray for
Not even trophy enough to pay for
I spent half of college trying to get
this boy to love me
The other half trying to get over him
Well, "that girl", she's been dead for years
now, but everybody keeps asking me
to conjure up her ghost
Two: Ode to the slut
who doesn't fuck
but still a slut, for not letting him hit
Ladies, there are always two ways of looking
at a condom in a wrapper.
Open your legs and you won't necessarily
find freedom, close them and you won't
necessarily find purity.
Purity is just contraception against evil thoughts
Freedom is knowing your hip is a hinge
use your body at your own discresion
and seek your own pleasure
What lies between your thighs
is a man's Genesis, so, how dare he
spit upon the scripture?
To all the women who've been pried open
propped up and jada posed
I'm sorry there was no funeral for the
going out of your smile
and the coming in of strangers
To all the women who've been called
hoes, boppers and skanks,
what's in a name but a whole lot of rape culture?
What's a slut anyway but a pimp in sheep's clothing?
Three: Ode to the bitch. Who's not a bitch.
Just doesn't always feel like shaking hands
after the show.
You know? I tried to tame the Leo in me
Cut off all my hair to bed rid of my ego
But she still comes roaring in
like a red dragon, cause she be my protection
a pitbull in a skirt, please, I'm a bull massive
on the scent of a fresh kill
And I'm still learning how to heal.
Five: Ode to the surgeons,
To the knives we wield deathly in our right hand
and the sutures that we made of our own
mouths when nothing else could close the wound
To my first love, and how I had to cut him out
At 19, and again at 21, and again at 22
Like a field doctor without supplies in the
battlefield, I had to improvise.
I marched through my own heart armed
with nothing and came out the other side
my hands might have been murderous
but my coat was still white and my shirt
was still clean.
Six: Ode to the mothers, who are also martyrs
who are also daughters of God
and therefore saints.
Ladies, how many times, how many times
have we tried to save someone with our love?
been bread, butter, and breath
Done our best to give good head
I mean knowledge, wisdom, understanding
Ode to the poet: on my best days she is all that I am
On my worst days she is all that I hope to be
Seven: Ode to the impossible.
I am still a redhead in my heart
just like my grandmama
have traveled to over 20 countries
wake up everyday and love what I do
and still wonder if I'm doing enough
If I'm worth enough
And sometimes all this self doubt gets
tiring, more tired than a bag of old diamonds
so I ask myself, if today were the last today
would I be ok with the life that I've lived
would I be ok with the woman that I am now
and then I forgive myself, no matter what
the answer, I forgive myself
I forgive myself until there is no more sand
left in Egypt.
I remember the mountains in my last name
and the victory in the middle
repeated over and over to myself as if
it were a mantra, Alysia Nicole Harris,
the unforgotten victory, the victory of the truth
It took me seven years. Seven whole years y'all
To go from "that girl" to "this woman"
but ain't God good?
And ain't I great?
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