Brave Womanhood

I grew up in a matriarchal house, where women worked as hard as any other man, so as to pay the rent and all the rest, all the while rearing their children all alone. So, for this International Women’s Day, I would like to thank my mother, my deceased grandmother, and as well as all my aunts, for they have shown me what real bravery is. 

Brave Womanhood (free verse poem)

My grandmother, she used to tell me
The story of her sister         
Whose roots now sprout under another sun
Amongst some blood that tastes
Of ancient magic and creatures long lost

She took a boat
And went on faraway seas
Never to look back again

She, whose dark skin
Never appeared as a brake
To her determination
She, whose thick hair
Never made her look less beautiful
And she, whose other attributes
Never stopped her mind  
From wandering daringly

She was fierce as a lioness
Studying till the late night hours
Under lights of kerosene lamps
Which stuffed her nostrils of black soot

And what a story for me to hang on to
In times when I’m too weak
In times where I am so fragile
That my bones don’t fit my own skin
In times where I despise my femininity
And envy men for their wings
In times where my feminine outfits
Are prisons too tight for me to breathe

And within my dreams 
It’s clear to see that
I am woman under an alien sky
With no spaceship to return to venus.   

-Eiravel-