Poems that move me

My beautiful friend Tlangi Ngwenya introduced me to Button Poetry. And it is through these poems that my feminism started to grow... Enjoy :)

1. Patriarchy - Vanessa Marco

2. The Other Black man - T. Miller

3. Fantastic breasts and where to find them - Brenna Towhy

The period poem - Dominique Christina 

Dear Straight People - Denice Frohman 

UN-BECOMING

“I want there to be a place in the world where people can engage in one another’s differences in a way that is redemptive, full of hope and possibility. Not this “In order to love you, I must make you something else”. That’s what domination is about, that in order to be close to you, I must possess you, remake you and recast you.” Bell Hooks

I have recently come out of a 10 year relationship. 10 years sounds very impressive, especially for a 25 year old. But if I am honest with you, and myself, it only lasted 10 years (with about 1001 break-ups along the way) because I was beating a dead horse. And while some of those 10 years were the happiest of my life, they were also the most painful, and unnecessary. What is it about finding love, and keeping it, that literally drives us insane causing us to compromise not only our standards and sanity, but ourselves as well?

We’re socialized to believe very specific and rigid ideas about love. We meet, get to know, fall in love with, get engaged to, marry, have kids with and eventually grow old with said lovers, in very specific ways. We have movies, music, magazines and the mothership of all the evils I have just mentioned, pop psychology books, dedicated to educating us about all things love and all things good and acceptable about love. But it would seem all this knowledge and socialization often cause us stay in relationships that are completely wrong for us, and cause us to walk away from relationships, or potential relationships that could bring us a lot of happiness purely because it didn’t happen in a way that is deemed appropriate by society.

Beating a dead horse. As I mentioned I did this for 10 flipping years. I am not sure if you know, but 10 years is a bloody long time. And it causes me to wonder, why would I put myself, and him, through that? Now, like I said it wasn’t all bad and yes I did genuinely love said ex-boyfriend and a part of me probably always will, but I, yes me because I was the one constantly pushing this so incredibly obviously divine union, dragged it out for much longer than I should have. And for what? Like most of us do, I believed that this was the best there was out there and if I gave up on him and left I was sure to be disappointed and lonely for the rest of my life, which is a very long time when you take my age into consideration. Legitimate fear? Not so much.

During the 10 years of this relationship my family would say that I was a different person when I was around him, and I brushed this off as them, as usual, not knowing what they were talking about. But if I was honest with myself, it was true. With my family and friends I was a more bossy, louder, more opinionated, witty, quick-lipped and slightly less polished and lady-like. But…of course…I loved him, and I was different with him because he made me (almost dies of embarrassment) a “better person”. And I believed this, whole-heartedly. I believed that with him I was my best possible self, with him I could be my best possible self. That he was there to bring light, and goodness, and at some stage, even God. He brought me back to church. How could he not be my real life knight in shining armor?

But why couldn't I be my best possible self by myself? Why was the person I was with everyone else, not good enough for him? Why did she have to be, not improved on, not polished, but changed! And of course I can play the blame game and say he wanted to change me, he thought I wasn't good enough as is, he he he. But that wouldn't be the truth. I believed all those things about myself and that’s what I showed him. So much so that when who I really was could no longer be silenced he thought I was becoming a different person. He didn't know that I was just unbecoming all the things I wasn't to become and grow into all the things I was, all the things I am.

Which brings me to a lovely piece by Warsan Shire titled “For Women who are Difficult to Love. Below are the most important points:

you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you

compares you to an impossible highway

to a burning house

you dizzy him, you are unbearable

every woman before or after you

is doused in your name

but you are always too intense

frightening in the way you want him

unashamed and sacrificial

and you tried to change didn't you?

closed your mouth more

tried to be softer

prettier

less volatile, less awake

You can't make homes out of human beings

someone should have already told you that

and if he wants to leave

then let him leave

you are terrifying

and strange and beautiful

something not everyone knows how to love.

I stayed because I loved him. I stayed because I thought he was better than me. I stayed because I thought I had hit the jackpot. I should have realized that not once in 10 years was I not trying to change and apologize and mold myself into something, someone suited for the glorious being that he was. And not once, did he really make me feel like I never needed to do any augmenting. I didn't realize this until I found someone who thought me, as is, 100% authentic, was the most incredible thing I could be and was baffled that I could ever want to try to be anything else.

Women, like love, are socialized in very specific ways. We are socialized to want very specific things and I think “Women who are difficult to love” are women who are themselves, uniquely themselves even when every single thing in society is screaming at you not to be. And at first we listen, but never for too long because the voice in your head is far too strong and too loud to be muffled and silence by society.

Becoming, or rather unbecoming everything that isn’t really you so you can be who you were really meant to be isn't a walk in the park. It’s beautiful and amazing in all the ways you can imagine and all the ways that you can’t, but it is excruciating. There are mornings when I wake up and I can feel the sadness and mourning of what was, in the depths of my soul and I want to go back. Not because it was bliss, not because I don’t love the way my life is now, but because amidst this chaos (and change very often seems chaotic) I crave the familiar. And then I am saddened that at those moments living a life of trying to be someone that I clearly wasn't is more familiar than living with the person that I really am.

I like being ‘difficult to love’. It makes me sound like a pain in the butt, but I’d rather that. I can be a pain in the butt if it means I am true to myself always, even if it annoys people. Because it will never annoy the people who genuinely love ME. 

"For women who are difficult to love"
The inspiration, well part of the inspiration, for my next blog post. Stay tuned ;)