To all those who have something to say about me

I have had enough –
Of the scornful glint
In your eyes
Off my black skin
of the thousands of shallow faces
you make
every time my eyes meet yours.

I have had enough –
Of your
“It’s such a pity she’s black,
She has such wonderful raven locks.”

I have had enough of you.

I no longer want to see the world
Where you flagrantly
Refer to women like me
As mere species, a cast, a cult
that require documentation,
ethnographic analysis.
I refuse to be a part
Of your bourgeois study,
I refuse to be defined by your narrative,
I refuse to be labelled.

I shall rather breathe
the winds of mother nature
with my head held high and strong

To all those who have something to say about me

and see, and feel her beauty
percolate through my veins,
with my heart,
where there is no space left
for you.