I AM PREGNANT WITH POTENTIAL

I’m pregnant with potential but I birth silence

And just ‘cause you slap me on my ass doesn’t mean I’ll scream

for you

my private is braided into pigtails decorated

with plastic barrettes

and

yellow rubber bands

the little girl in me is afraid

but the woman in me will kill you

while cooking breakfast

that’s that Scorpio shit

you get caught up on wanting to

ménage a trios

my metaphor, five, six times a lady third eye evade me

we drown in lyrical libations never played on radio stations

hands grow impatient

and I want to be sweet for you, baby

but your spit no longer drips liquid sugar

teeth are rotting and falling as I speak

to my spirit alone with my things-to-do-list

standing on my spine before realizing your feet are too heavy

for my back so I simply erase your name

from the paper

wet the dead tree with my tears in hopes to grow a dozen

more

of you so afraid

to let me show you how a real woman could

my wholeness will guide you to the

half of you

you thought you didn’t have

so you only offered the little that your

body allowed

and in the end it’s never enough

‘cause

I wanna smell like it

taste like it feel like it walk barefoot inside it

wrap it around my waist wear it in the shower take it

home with me

share it with my girls play an Aretha CD to it eat it sweat it

believe it African-dance to it wash my face with it hold it

love it

grow it out my stomach rock my Adidas with it let it run

down my

back lick it live it shake a tambourine and say amen

because of it

steal it if I have to

melt chocolate on top of it

just want it to be sweet, baby

sweet like you like we can be

like revolution

-Jessica Care Moore