Meditation on Being: A Black Female Body
Teju Adisa-Farrar
I.
The subject becomes the object when the physical is colonized by the gaze.
The liberated become the dependent when everything in life becomes for sale.
We are trapped in these bodies,
which are then trapped in this society,
which is then trapped on this earth,
which is surrounded by greenhouse gases trapped in the ozone,
but still my breasts draw so much attention
and have even been referred to as planets.
Speaking of which,
since Trump has been elected NASA has found more livable planets than ever.
The universe seems like the best escape-plan from injustice, now more than ever.
But still, in these bodies, we are trapped.
II.
Some of us are asked to explain.
Once, a young Irish Traveller no more than three
looked up and asked me:
“Are you Black everywhere?”
I pulled up my sleeve and told her “Yes.”
Her wide blue eyes became wider with a new sense of the world.
I was Black everywhere, but Fanon said that in 1967:
“Wherever he [or she] goes,
the negro remains a negro.”
The skin I am wrapped in is the color of earth.
The skin I’m wrapped in is reflective of the sun.
This skin that holds me
can define many of my experiences and people’s flawed logic.
The historical geography of this skin is what makes me Magic.
III.
He told me I wear my cape nicely.
A compliment, which felt a bit limiting,
Alas, most limits are also opportunities.
A cape would be fastened around my neck,
a neck which could’ve easily had a rope around it.
The lynching of female bodies was simultaneously sexual violence.
The lynching of pregnant woman was generational erasure.
The burning of Healer Women was common.
Witches were powerful so they were burned alive.
Faggots were deviant so they were burned on a bundle of sticks: faggots.
And witches and Black women,
and when I was 5 I wanted to be a witch every Halloween.
And when I was 5 I was growing into my female Black body.
And when I was 15 I was dating a woman who wore boy clothes:
Black woman,
Witch,
Faggot.
IV.
My skin is already Blackened
so fire will only swallow me and spit me out to the sky.
The scars on this body are not mine,
but I will gladly accept them because over time they have defined
how I am able to be in this world:
My body is being Black
My body is being Queer
My body is loving men
My body is loving sex
My body is being a Woman
…learning how to be Women.
V.
We are trapped in these bodies.
But also there is freedom in my body.
Always, there is conflict in this body.
Also, there is pain in my body.
But this body belongs to me and beyond it,
I will always exist.
