Purple Cunt
content disclaimer: profanity
I'm a Black bitch purple cunt,
free to twerk on the gram
and smoke a blunt. And I'll be blunt,
I like that shit. My body’s been my best friend
since I reclaimed it.
I can get on a stage to do poetry and pop my ass while I spit.
Free to show skin or be modest
as I please
in this world where Black women have been made
commodities—
objects on auction blocks
subjected to society’s desire and disgust.
Autonomy is still a distant dream for many of my sisters who are made strangers to their bodies.
Black and woman.
My body becomes spectacle
whether I like it or not,
so I might as well make a scene
and make it hot.
Make some money,
get my tits up, get my chips up, so I can put my muthafucking bids up for my rights and
autonomy.
For too long, Black women’s existence
has been governed by the pockets and proclivities of sadistic men,
and it's long past time for that shit to end.
From Sara Baartman to the transatlantic theft,
Black women have been bought, displayed,
and left bereft—
our bodies studied,
our bodies
the political playground in which science and racism become muddied and
our bodies carry stories that'll make your white feminism more bloody.
Centuries of black women in bondage,
not allowed to have boundaries,
Branded as byproduct but still flayed as venison
Our bodies made feast for the beast of male entitlement—
simultaneously sub and super—
we fight to be seen as human in a world
that sees our bodies as pleasure pits and property.
Practitioners like pimps
profiting from our biology.
Black women’s wombs have been turned inside out to further modern gynecology;
dissect our design and
then leave our names out of the history.
I learned of Lucy, Betsy, and Anarcha
and I feel called to cause anarchy—
break out of the patriarchy’s carnivorous cage—
let all beef get smoked
by Black feminine rage.
Burn down the auction block,
make them
put the mothafucking money in our mothafucking hands,
collapse their glass ceilings back into sand,
so we can shape our own time—
and soar Free
in body, soul, and mind.
Black women's bodies are not offerings and oddities.
We deserve to be seen running our own show.
We deserve pleasure that can't be stolen.
Because we belong to no one
and we resist with every rise and fall of our chests…
with the whine of our waists and caress of our breasts. Every breath
is a BITCH WE’RE ALIVE! AND YOU CAN'T HOLD US!
As we embrace our natural beauty;
heal ourselves and heal communities;
speak up and share our stories;
and no, the fight doesn't end with individual autonomy—
it ends when every purple cunt in the world is free.
And I'm blessed that I can be bold
and
harvest what my foremother’s blood has sown.
So I'm gonna repose
with honey on my lips and shimmer
on my toes.
Spend my time creating poetry, paintings, and prose.
Take a pic, strike a pose.
Post a thirst trap,
body roll on the pole—
I'll be a proud Black ass hoe.
Cause I'm a whole human.
Shaping the soil for a new world to grow.
