poetry session

We Survive.


Does it hurt you more
Than it hurts me
To call me a bitch under your breath
While crossing the street…
Or rather, over the phone
Over a computer screen to save face
Where you stay within your
Cowardice space…
Making complaints about
What I did or did not say
What I wore the night before
Or the choices that I’ve made to avoid your callous pathways
I get it
It’s rather easy
To slander my femininity
Without having a sense of accountability
To reach for far lesser inferior meanings
From what it is and what it’s like…
What it means to be a queen

Does it hurt you more
Than it hurts me
To call me a ho just to aggress
Gearing up for war
Stabbing spears in my heart
And aiming bullets at my chest
Burning scarlet letters on my breast
These same breasts that nursed your sons
That provided nourishment in pure excess
These same breasts that you sucked, licked and caressed
That possess the suppleness and the raw
That express a rise and a fall
Whether I assess to ride dicks or walk tall
That same movement now suppressed
When required to wear a bra

Does it hurt you more
Than it hurts me
To see me and view me as
A cavity to deposit seeds
Seeping from your phallic physicality
Bearing sons to promote family name longevity
While miscarrying daughters
Wiping away, decimating matriarchal legacy
Do you realize what it's like?
To possess the powerful ability
To harness life
Two beings, one shell
Individual yet indivisible
Does it hurt you more than it hurts me?
I think not.
When you're being laid upon that table
Being told you won't feel a thing
When really the emotions inside
Mimic the instruments
That cut away and scrape in quick and succinct
Ways and motions
Vacuuming up remnants of a being that was to become your own
Fuck the arguments of stages: multi-cellular organism vs. embryo vs. human
You were my own
And for whatever reason
Were taken away from me
You were my own
And ironically,
This table...
This tidal zone of emotions,
Where other women exercise their freedom of choice
Is the same place where I come to wear the burden of mine
The burden of not having to choose you…
My own

Does it hurt you more than it hurts me?
I don’t think so.
Because we... transpose…
There is pain behind everything that is beautiful
And wherever there is pain there is strength
And whatever strength I uphold comes from a previous beautiful struggle
Yes…
We women struggle
But whatever the platform of
Degenerate interjections
It will always fall on no longer deaf ears
But open hearts and fruitful minds...
That house revolutionary cadence
To which we hold our heads high
We steady the pace
While still maintaining grace
Take care of living spaces
While STILL working a 9 to 5

Yes…
We women struggle
And better yet…
We survive.

-j.sanjuan