i must be showing, they must be smelling me the blood that rushes from the keeper of my ovaries i must be disgusting, they must be repulsed by me the odor carries over in my legs and what sits between
i must be leaking, they must see mahogany the river from beneath me, cuts with crimson through misogyny i must be odorous, they must taste the cherries when a body’s this porous, it’s threatening, it’s scary
i must be a siren, they sound the alarms every place i arrive, the men they lock and load arms i must be a target, a period they can aim towards a bull’s eye of garnet to infuriate the main guards
i am my vagina, i carry and i give life every month, at least, i kill in battles you could never fight see, the best warriors shed just as much blood as they take ‘cause the fear of death is nothing when you’re this acquainted with pain
without my vagina, there could be no castle you could have no dynasty or walls to overshadow and a fear of the fearless is a power you can’t create so you can build your empires, but their foundation is my cave
i digress…
although, it is a necessary digression a necessary digression to lean into the complexities of intersectional oppression where the facets of our identities clash in power and suppression where socio-culturally, we’re forced to grapple with contradiction
i am here to build pyramids, not to build hierarchies of struggle as a brown and queer womxn, i must be accounted for and be responsible but to be summoned by a man who sees my color and not my pussy unproductive—pun intended—is your penis not accountable to me?
i digress…
although, it is a necessary digression a necessary digression to glean from the tragedies of the marginalized in competition the true victor is neither army, but the devil that siphons my blood that rapes me daily, that robs your seeds, that made strange fruit from your ancestor’s guts
we do not know each other’s pain, the blood we shed has particularity your scarlet no deeper than my stain, our shedding is our familiarity
i will not cut you to compete with your red while the devil drinks our wine my vagina and your color are different grapes of tangled vines
but back to my vagina, this vessel with fangs as soft as feathers is not as open as my heart, so you must ask before you enter
your entrance by force whether by lust, touch, or words are somatic assaults on the parts that render me "her"
to live in this body is to be in constant warfare to love in this body is to be subject to silent terrorism
only a body that fights to live will die for a cause beyond its own only a body that bleeds as it draws can die and come alive on its own.