#writfullytessie — Public Fediverse posts

SOFT, NOT SORRY

Pretty is a strange word.

It asks so little of the thing being admired.

Be pleasing.

Be soft.

Be easy on the eyes.

Be gentle enough to hold
and quiet enough to keep.

Nobody asks what happens
when pretty gets tired of being pleasant.

Nobody asks what happens
when the flower is touched too many times.

When please has been said and ignored.

When the smile has been mistaken for permission.

That is when the teeth appear.

Not always to attack.

Sometimes to defend.

Sometimes to retaliate.

Sometimes simply to communicate:

I said no.

I said stop.

I am not yours to handle.

There are things a mouth can say without words.

A clenched jaw.

A sharpened smile.

The sudden flash of something white behind the lips.

Teeth.

We are taught to hide them.

Ladies do not growl.

And certainly do not bite back.

But I have never understood
why biting back is considered ugly,
when the first bite was violence.

Why is the wound we return
less acceptable than the wound we received?

Why must a woman remain gentle
in the language of her defence?

When the kindest thing
she can do for herself

is bite back.

FLUENT IN SILENCE

Silence has many forms.
Sometimes it protects.
Sometimes it connects.
Sometimes it carries what we are not ready to say.
And sometimes -it becomes the very thing that harms us.
This collection explores silence not as absence but as language.
A language learned, inherited, shared and,at times reclaimed.
These poems are not just about what is unsaid, but about what silence holds-love,fear, memory, power and choice.
-Nandipha Chibwe