This is a body
For you it is broken
Put inside is a child
Ripped open
For a human birth
To come forth
Onto this earth
This is my body
For you it is softened
This is the skin
I am proud to live in
Holding centuries
Of misperception
By men
Who think it’s for them
This skin
Holds me in
But “in” will no longer suffice
Let it all come out now
This body is my vice
Sing it from the mountaintop
This body is my pleasure
To please me
With feathers
Smooth
Silken
Fallen
Upon my stomach
Tickled and tenderly touched
These are my eyes
They have seen
Women ogled
Jostled
Wounded
Caressed
Nurtured
These are my ears
They have heard
Women cat-called
Mistreated
Criticized
Ridiculed
Shamed
Glorified
Encouraged
Honored
Praised
These are my hands
They have felt
The heat of a lover’s touch
The cold of a lost love
The ice of a father’s death
The warmth of my baby’s face
The freedom of creating art
The flow of clear rushing waters
The depth of my own written words
They are wrinkling with the passage
Of time
This is my mind
My feminist mind
It has held
The continuity of womanly strength
The millennia of passed down ideas
The newness of my own unique thoughts
This mind has brought
Into being
An expression of truth and beauty
Never before seen, heard, or felt
Coming straight from me
Or from beyond me
From somewhere I cannot see
This is me
In all of the glory
Of my sacred femininity
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Author: Tina Picz Devoe 
Image: Sarah Ann Loreth/Flickr
Editor: Travis May
Copy Editor: Catherine Monkman
Social Editor: Callie Rushton