Release Her Power

July 7, 2013 · by Chika Oduah · in Gender, Society, Spirituality. ·

She brings you into this world in a flush of blood. Divining with the gods with each forceful thrust, shrieking into the hands of the invisibles. Burdened to dim her flame eternal, mute her voice, neglect her brilliance, you’ve labeled her crazy, sensitive, dramatic, and overemotional, not gifted, seer, loyal, varied, soulful. She’s tortured, patronized, relegated as hard to handle. She yearns to stand beside a great man. A progression capped at Helper. Support. The neck to be headed. The way to be warded. Following the leader. Her identity is man-tied times three: her father, brother (s), husband. Her last name changes twice — fornicator, if thrice.

Giddy in heels, pretty in makeup, blushed cheeks and puckered lips to get him on top of her, she masks her soul. A crippling fear of nudity where ashen hands and blemished skin rise in real time. Feminine enemies cast wary glances, a realm of blessed forces in stupefied disarray; disarmed angels succumb to bearded demons.

And when she loves, she loves in falling slow motion… coming, layers peeling, land on the wayside hands grasping your heart pulling it up way inside the space of her familiar, you know as nothing, fortuned invader. Humbled in loved, she will call you at twilight sunrise high noon high tide low tide. We love in tiers, giggles, tears, sighs. Mood-ied frenzy. Love being a stratified existence of unabashed compassion, a sublime calm.

Locked in spaces where she can never thrive, you keep her bored, feeding her lies of false shortcomings, never letting her sprout nor fly. Half the world is sinking, has sunken to a pillaged core. A lopsided plane, aggression galore. Release her power, she blooms in the spring time, dies at the right time. Live and let her live.

by Chika Oduah

Where there is a woman there is magic. If there is a moon falling from her mouth, she is a woman who knows her magic, who can share or not share her powers. A woman with a moon falling from her mouth, roses between her legs and tiaras of Spanish moss, this woman is a consort of spirits.

— from Nzotake Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo