The creation story begins in her womb
Poetry
My grandmother says
the metal in my stomach
Is another colonial history
Africa was whole
before they cooked up a scrambled story
She was fertile
before they created her boundaries
How is it not the same for Eve
when they took her from Adam’s ribs
And robbed her off
her own creation story
Why is it that we can’t make more Eves
from men’s ribs
Or watch men rise from clay
And why is it that men
are so quick to put boundaries
on a woman’s body
As if to say
they can’t acknowledge
That we made them
That we were queens
before they were Kings
That the metal in my stomach is the
scepter we choose to swallow
for the king’s appetite
My grandmother can’t fathom
why a woman would choose
to put a metal in her stomach
Why we can’t teach men
Self-control
and women
That we are not houses
to be lived in
That our bodies don’t need rooms
for every border that a man creates
Say that we could unscramble this story
Save our daughters from becoming Eves
and teach them that the only creation story
begins in her womb
Thanks for reading! -Florence
