Who Do You Write For?

and where do you write from?

my book, beckoning of the wind: an ode to motherhood. photo by @shotbyailene

I write for the healing. For those whose words set fire to their tongues, build villages, scream down the walls of Jericho.

I write for the women of my lineage. My words be a hymnal for my unborn daughters, revolutionizing our sacred femininity one syllable at a time.

I write for the men of my blood, for the brown-skinned son that I carried in my belly under September’s moon — weaving a generation with the bones that I am made of.

I write for the mothers who have turned their tests to testimonies, whose trials and tribulations became the wombs of their rebirth. For they know that the sun sets it one place yet rises in another.

I write for the girls breaking free from their silence, for the women who run with the quickening of the wind. I write for the girls filled with softness and with rage. For the women both hellfire and holy water (and the flavor you taste depends on how you treat her).*

I write for the women who have turned their burials into resurrections. For the ones unweaving themselves from the echoes of their ancestors’ wounds.

I write for the divinely-in-motion girls, deep-weaved like the way their mother’s hands twisted braids to their scalps girls. For the double dutch-ing, bubblegum-ing, child-like at heart girls.

I write for the midnight bird women, the ones who soften souls like a personified lullaby. Rock-a-bye baby let me show you my dreams kind of women. Swaying her hips in cursive to the rhythm of her own beat type of women.

I write for the girls filled with ache and love and the quick burn of a hot comb against the back of their neck. I write for all the tears they were told to hold inside, for all the times they were told to “keep still before I give you something to cry about” — the world has given them countless of reasons to since then.

I write for the girls looking for a place to lay their bones, trade in their war for softness. I write for both the warrior and the weary women, for the women who are both storm and sun, a furious tsunami if she damned please.

I write for the pruning women, for the deep-down-to-the-soil women. For the “we gon’ get to the root” type women. Ain’t afraid to get her hands dirty kind of women.

I write for the trauma women, for the ones who emerge from the remnants of their pain — steady-like, strong-like, ready-to-conquer-the-world-like. The ones making wombs of their ache and wonder of their wounds. For though they may not know where they’re going, they go with grace and authority and glory — carrying their hearts and their names.

I write for the bearing-of-good-fruit women, for the Zion women. For the river of Jordan women. For the sacred women, the discerning, full-of-wisdom women

I write for the forbidden fruit women, the ones the world think they can grab just a taste of women. The “unhand me” type women. The “I belong to myself” kind of women.

I write for the foremothers who praised their way through and through. For the women who kiss the ground with their knees. I write for their tears, their wells of grieving water. I write to aid the bruise. I write to free them from it.

I write for the whiskey and the wine women. The women who go down burning everything in their wake and the women who trickle smoothly and slowly, and then strike you when you least expect it.

I write for the deep-breath-of-an-interlude women. The ones who lean into rest type of women. The ones who don’t try to carry the weight of the world kind of women.

I write from all the women inside of me, the DNA of my heritage threaded into my words. I write from every version of woman I have ever been and ever version that I am destined to become.

I write for tribute, for honor, as ode — finding the rhythm of my words, finding the pace of my tongue. I write from the landscape of my language — as rebellion, as declaration, as the salvaging of my very name.

this piece was inspired by a note from

asa riah

*— quote by Sneha Pal

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