By Rhianna Searle
I learned about
autonomy
in geography class.
Your decision invades my body.
Women sailed in the seventies
to uncharted independence.
Fifty years later,
we pick up the paddles.
It’s simple really,
you want more babies,
more worker bees
to pollinate your precious economy.
Women become the hive.
You translate humans
into hexagons
from a document
that was never written for us.
We become cartographers
writing our rights
in sharpie on each other’s arms:
directions.
You slice us down like sunflowers
on the verge of blossom.
America has a broken sense of belonging.
On land that was stolen
from our Indigenous sisters
Wearing green inspired
by our South American sisters
we fight for our bodies
which should have already and always
been ours.
I learned about
autonomy
in geography class.
But I should have learned about
autonomy
in health class
in history class.
We sail through
already
charted
waters
plant our flag of personhood
and ask:
when do we get to rub honey
on our calloused hands?
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