I Am A Woman And I Don’t Feel Safe In This World

I was born like this
With tits and big hips
A river between my legs,
A lake in my heart,
A mind that rages like the ebbs of the sea,
Mud on my hands before I knew what water is.

I have dragged this mountain,
And though I have the sight,
I still crumble at my sides.
I have been told to bow down to thunder,
That voice that commands an army to war,
That because I bleed
Dirty fingers can do no harm to filth
Yet every time I step out of the house
I feel sick.

Sick from the touch of the gate,
Leaving that temporary island of mine
And accepting that today might be the day,
That my river banks will burst,
That a man will take my heart
And eat it.

Here is one rule for you girl:
Never get in a bus full of men
Or half-full
or men only
Or too many men
Or too many options coming to my head.
Because I have breasts,
My brain has to make calculations
That make it blacken with rot,
Because the same men I fear,
I love and need love from.

You can be a lion, king of kings,
You can have the title and the jungle,
But why devour the female that aids the hunt?
Why break her arms? Her heart?
Why forcefully take her parts?
You can have the glass buildings,
All the streets, churches, banks
And what else do you want?
You have our hearts, they’re at your feet,
But you chew us up like pieces of meat,
Like dirt you kick,
Yet I love you still.

I was born like this
With tits and big hips,
But I imagine if I wasn’t,
I would not have to  jump at sudden touch,
Or miss a bus because there were no seats
Except the seats that were there
With no people seated on them
Beside the men.
I’d even enjoy an evening walk
Knowing the only people
Who would interrupt the stroll
Are people that knew me.
Knowing that no strange hands,
Would dare explore this strange body
That I am yet to explore on my own.
Knowing no mouth and nose would wrinkle
No fist be folded
If I declined a conversation.
Knowing that the man behind the wheel
Will not turn the wheels on me
Or the man that opens the gate,
Or the one seated under the shade
Throwing his head left and right,
Or the police man on his way home,
After offering me a protective ride,
Or the date in the club, pub, tub,
A lover turned murderously cold.
You want to avoid groups,
Apparently it’s always the devil’s mercury
That runs through their veins
And dehumanizes
Our fathers, brothers, husbands, uncles, grand fathers, boyfriends,
Male brothers.

Still, I cannot tell you
How wildly this heart beats
For that one of yours.
I cannot write for you the scene
That can explain everything
That you mean to me.
I could soak in oceanic paint
And still find no color
For that scene where I watch you be you,
Where my heart jumps,
Where my kidneys and liver dance,
While the stomach plays the tambourine.
The brain evaporated with the air
As it always does.
Boy oh boy!

Mountains will never bow to thunders.
Loud as the voice may be,
Hard as the strike of the storm may hit,
Cracked as the shell that covers me,
No matter the cold or the heat,
The mountain’s debris will make art before you,
Between the fault lines of broken hearts
And you will have helped in the making of this art,
But that’s not the help we need.

You’re far from an ape
You’re a grown man.
Leave behind the hunting days,
Cut the egotistic sack off your back,
Let it drop,
Let it shatter.
Explain to me
The ways in which I do not understand
Then explain to me what I do not understand
Then explain it so that I may understand
Because I would like to try
To peek behind the blinds,
Draw them back just a little,
See that shadow in the corner
Hiding in the dark,
Plunge into the dark matter of your brain.
See just how willing I am to do this,
Because I just want to understand
What would make a six year old child wake that serpent kundilini.
What would make you believe
That because I say I do
I should do
And you can do?
That because I love you
I will sit down for this maddening stupidity?
That I will flutter my eyes
And high five every guy that demands my time?

You don’t have to be a feminist
To give a woman some respect
Or maybe value her life
As much as you do yours.
You don’t have to carry a vagina
To know that life is hard
For everyone
As it is.
Feminism should not be a career,
Women should not fight this hard
To feel safe enjoying watching the sunset alone.
Feminism should not even be in the syllabus
Of any book
But it’s in every book that matters
In every poem
In every new child that screams,
Every wet stain on a pillow case,
Every knife and every gun held in self defense,
Every pot of stew.
As the plot thickens,
As the days go by,
Frustration boils over,
Salty and bitter,
And explodes around the periphery,
And smears on every face.
It stings the tongue,
Disgusts the throat,
And the stories we tell
When we get home,
When we kiss our kids goodnight,
When we turn on the news,
When we tweet,
When we gossip with a friend,
Expands this bitter tasty thing’s periphery.
And how we told it,
Becomes history
And history repeated becomes culture,
And culture becomes genetics.
Since we cannot reverse this process,
We can still start from the beginning
By telling the right story.
But these new stories will need new actions,
New perspectives, new behaviors,
And we will write a better history,
By being a better people,
Genuinely from the depths of your own heart.

I was born like this
And I cannot change it.
You know why I wouldn’t want to?
If I was a man,
Would I have ever written this?
I suppose,
If the world felt safe for women
I wouldn’t have to,
Man or woman.

Hi. My name is Kendi Karimi.
I am a woman
And I don’t feel safe in this world,
My home, my beautiful country.
Born on a grave yard,
I use the bones to plough the ground,
Plant some seeds on the skeletons,
And watch the stems blossom in to flowers.

Read more poetry below:

Support the arts. 👇❤️

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐