“How dare I bleed”

Chimine Nicole breastfeeding her children

How dare I bleed

by 

Chimine Nicole 

And those breasts, those large supple breasts.

It must be my fault. For having this body. For coming into this world as a woman.

It is my fault I was raped.

Because those breasts, what young girl has a body like that?

It is my fault I needed a morning after pill.

The morning after I was raped.

Because I bleed. How dare I create life?

I brought these babies into the world, they came through my vulva, out of my womb covered in my blood.

I alone raise them.

And yet its my fault their father chooses drugs

I nurtured their tiny premature bodies with the milk from my breasts into

Chunky thighs, chunky faces, that fat mama milk nourished their little brains

How dare I demand that my breasts mean more than what they have been objectified into since the summer between 7th and 8th grade when they exploded from my body

Size zero, 32 double D at the age of 13

But my body was never mine. Only yours to decide whether or not you could “grab me by the pussy”

Like any other young boy who looked up to men like you, men of the patriarchy

When I finally reclaimed my body in those countless hours staring through my babies souls, in a recursive dance of neurons healing in my brain as I gave life through my nipples into their bodies,

When I found my voice, deeply rooted in my Cuban ancestors, that inner wisdom slithering and weaving through my sexy mamihood, that serpentine conocimientos

When I recovered ancient practices of my grandmother, my great grandmother, my great great grandmother

When my ancestors started to visit in my dreams

When I spoke again, it was now the woman who wished to take my body

For so many years they burned us, raped us, appropriated our reproductive systems

So much pain, trauma, bifurcation

That we ourselves forgot.

That we bleed

We make life

We have bodies

That we feel

That we desire

That we hurt.
……………………………
That we are connected

Chimine has written for me twice before and I admire the way she portrays her experiences in a passionate and resilient manner while eliciting sympathy from the reader

http://ambitiousmamas.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/a-powerful-message-from-pro-hillary.html

http://ambitiousmamas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/one-womans-story-on-why-she-did-not.html