Mesong

Not always for me the unspoken. 
Not always for me the subtle. 

I am a brown girl from the earth. 
I grew in the middle of everything. 
I grew in the corner of everywhere. 
I grew being big. Strong. Wilful. Lazy-limbed. 
Not for me the mildly hinted. 
Not for me the whispered.
I thrive on the oft-repeated. 
In the shouted. In the brutal honesty. In the Bald truth. 
I can gleefully chomp on the borrowed. 
I can woefully cry for the unknown. 
I can roll with the punches. I can take that hit. Again and Again, and Again. 
I can carry off the black and blue with the brown. 
I dont tuck my hair behind my ears. 
I dont decry my burden. My Brownness.
I dance. Drunk with the power of the transparent. 
I sway. Heady with the scent of me. Known. Common. Citrusy. 
Men fear. They laugh from afar. Or think me someone else. And hint at something and run away. When I roar at them with my eyes. 
I snap my curls and it rains camaraderie and I gather them in a knot and friends grow foe. My tense calves flex at my bursting energy.
I scatter secrets with my eyelashes and gather love stories with my ears. 
My heart is in the right place and mind sinks in the weedy waters of my neighbourhood pond. 
My intentions are always kind and my actions lost in the serpentine lanes of the monday markets of lust. 
I was born into a maze of thoughts. Into a melting pot of identities. Into the back alley of modesty. Into the slum of morality. But I grew a giantess. And chandeliers glittered in my hair. 
And I can barely see where my feet land. But I stomp on. And on. On rubble of pulled down vanities. 
On the down filled dream of the ancestors. On the mud filled gullies of a silly hometown. And sometimes I fall in puddles fiilled with rainbow. 
And sometimes I fall in trenches of the polite. 
And I grow strong and die. I grow weak but survive. 
Hope eludes me. Hope is in my pocket. Hope is my best friend. Hope deceives me. 
And I wipe my eyelashes on my torn heartsleeves. 
And I fly again. Blind. Scared. Stupid. Hopeful.