À l’heure du tout à l’image et du buzz sans suite, «l’express» souhaite faire découvrir la plume de poètes, de chanteurs, d’écrivains et de tous ceux qui jettent leur âme sur le papier, et qui mettent en mots des réflexions sur la condition des femmes.

Darling, listen closely

to the murmurs of a night hiding the sight

of women with skin glistening like rubies.

Their tresses, dried and curled,

rest on their shoulders–

to some, representing the pillar of femininity.

Family and friends, strangers and passers-by,

lean against the wall and recognise them

as the woman they define:

the woman in a cubicle,

the woman behind the silver-beaded curtains,

painted lips, stabbing the floor

with metallic heels.

The woman whose skin glistens,

not like diamonds or rubies,

but like a brass doorknob

they can turn and twist.

The woman who is veneered as an unclad beauty

dancing under a chandelier

able to bear, birth, and return

to her svelte, willowy self.

The woman who moves like a thief

under the covers at midnight,

drawing people in, to a breath

that ignites the ears behind closed curtains.

Darling, do you know who a woman truly is?

When everyone asks the woman who she is,

she often says who she is not

because she is caught in the quagmire

of who she should be.

The definitions stick like mud to her soles

and for whatever reason, her kohl-lined eyes

water her cheeks

– formerly kissed and pinched–

while she says:

I remember running barefoot.

Like a lotus, I felt I floated on tender waters.

But that was a very brief moment

when I knew nothing of the depth of that pond.

The many voices in my head tear at me,

the tunes of my heart drown me,

and the trauma stored in my body

forces me to sleep on a rug of solitude.

I admit I was scared of and angry at

everything and anything, men who walked behind me,

those who pretended to call me ‘sister’, who looked at my mother,

who said ‘I do’ at the altar so easily?

I admit I was annoyed at myself

not to know who I am, who I can be, who I should not be.

I am often a pile of mud crouched on the shower floor,

until I get up, wipe my tears, and whisper a prayer…

Darling, a woman is someone with the strength

and the courage of many who have walked before her.

Her roots of femininity are entrenched

in the wounds of her mothers.

A woman does not need to look for further definitions

because SHE IS A WOMAN,

that is enough,

that is being whole enough to slice through the dark.

Bio

A writer and PhD student at the University of Salford (UK), she has just finished writing her nonfiction book on occult practices in Mauritius.