Our Body

Our bodies are our inheritance. Our heritage.

Within each crevice lies a legend

In each whisper a communication

Gifts from our foremothers, tales from our personal and ancestral histories

The narratives of the hegemony force cruel accounts upon our bodies

Our relationship with them ruptured, bruised, broken and sometimes deceased — suffocating in their silence.

But when we tune deeply into our bodies, we hear transgenerational stories of love, resilience, trauma and struggle.

And our skin holds these stories too.

It helps us enjoy the world in all its wonder

We enjoy other people, form connection — with this very skin

The skin we have learnt to hate for its melanin

Is lovingly passed down through generations.

And the stories it holds no longer need to be silenced

But reacquainted with after centuries.

This is the kind of friendship

Where the love stays unwavering

And even if you lose touch

It is as if we had never separated in the first place.