Touch your shoulders.
Feel the weight we bear together,
Each abasa, a testament to resilience.
Sisters, we hold each other up,
Shoulders squared against the storm.
Touch your hair,
Your crown, your halo.
Every strand a story,
Twisting, coiling, dancing
The roots of which run deep into a lineage of queens, who a long time ago built economies out of the pockets of their cornrows
Majestic, fierce, unbowed.
Touch your stretch marks,
The waves of the sea imprinted on your skin.
A recoiling delicacy
Like traces in the Sahara’s sands,
Each mark a journey through time,
The very testament that your body just like your soul broke free from the captivity of a small vessel
You see the bumps and lumps of the earth, hills and mountains and valleys that is how your body is
Well rounded with the right proportions and patterns
The fabric of the earth and all it asks for is touch
Touch your scars,
The quiet tattoos of survival.
The evidence of your defiance,
The symbol of the courage you are,
Reborn, renewed, relentless.
Touch your sisters,
Feel the connection,
The Bluetooth of beating hearts
Our discerning hearts that automatically remember that, hey
I know this beat, you beat just like me
Awww
In essence, we need need a touch of each other
A touch of love to awaken the light we are in this tunnel called life
Yes sister we are woven together by the threads of our shared existence
And with your touch you save my life
Winniefred F. Gbemuotor
