"I made a product for men"

My Father's words resonated in my head
What did he mean by "product"?
My seven year old mind
tried to put it together
like a puzzle
I couldn't quite put the pieces together
I left my father's words
scattered on the floor that day

Ten years later
you crawled out of the darkness into my soul
you took my dignity that night and
my mind couldn't help but drift
to the grocery store
ten years back
where my father told the cashier
that he had made a "product" for men

The seven year old me
picked up the words
my father spit out,
not knowing what they would
one day do to his little girl
I put them together
each piece fit perfectly
I knew exactly what my father meant by "product" now

"Product"
that's precisely what I was to you
something to be used
for your satisfaction
I was to be submissive
to the male
"dont disappoint him"

I was held captive
in my own body
a body that was now in your possession

you used me carelessly
left me dry
without life
nothing could be planted in me and flourish anymore

Somehow what you did to me
was acceptable
what you made me do
over and over again
until it was ideal for you
was acceptable
I am a product
that is what I was made to do
I was meant to be used by you
over and over again

sometimes i forget
how i have grown to own my skin
and i am bigger than what i was trained to be

sometimes that training kicks in
and i am just curleys wife,
flashing ankles
trying to soak up leers
the same way young men
graciously accept accolades.

i wish i could say it at least
leaves an oily film
or the burning of bile
in the back of my throat but
it doesnt.

She was born
A wild flower
Growing freely
In her own way
Running wild
Living life

i see your eyes dancing
to the flickering lights
as the shadows shimmer
on our balcony tiles

rocking on your heels to
the rhythm of the night
simply radiant with
no sorrows or lies

you make sacrifices
seem like your prize
breathing love and gratitude
into our days and nights

but oh baby girl
you can’t always disguise
all those dreams you have
for the sake of our lives

cc

doesn't matter how i hold it,
liquor in my hand brings shame to the man

i've sat at hundreds of dinner tables,
watched the women politely drink their water,
nobody stops their husbands from making fools of themselves
and my father takes pride in never having asked to be picked up from a bar
there's so much more i expect in a good man than sobriety

i drink to forget, more often to mourn than celebrate
i am classless, i am not marriage material anymore

it's 1:15 in the morning, and i see brown curly hair
and heartbreak wearing it like a costume
approaching me

6'2" and probably a little younger than me
still, he gets to be the tower
even though i've been here longer

you can't hear wedding bells in a place this loud
i took a (tequila) shot in the dark, and kissed him like i meant it

if i give birth it will be in the handicap stall of a mall bathroom
on Sunday afternoon
and people are noticing how
i ain’t been to church in a while
and it’s funny
how some spaces, just out of necessity
make themselves into chapels
i don’t have holy water but
i do have this coke zero and
i don’t have wafers but momma
gave me some motrin this morning

if i get married it will be in one of those old dusty dug outs
where someone had scratched
“*****”
into the wall and
daddy’s workin and  momma’s sleepin so
i’m alone standing face to a man and God
i’ll wear my helmet and black face paint coz
i don’t have my Sundays’ best
and it’s funny  
how some spaces, just out of circumstance
must become a chapel

and when i leave Him
some, many nights later
i’ll go to midnight mass
and ask Mother Mary
how a stable must have felt