Wearing My Womanhood

My womanhood wears me like a skirt too tight 

in the wintertime, muscles shrinking into the claustrophobic 

cloth, too cold to believe that a woman is still 

inside of it 

My womanhood suffocates, each leg crammed in, 

worn out like each letter of my name 

by the men who say it  

My womanhood slowly disintegrates.  

My womanhood wears me either two sizes too small or 

two sizes oversized, hidden within the shameful folds of 

fickle fabric or overly exposed to the scolds 

of the frostbitten, unforgiving season that unfolds 

My womanhood never fits into the cinnamon-colored 

skin I was born in; My womanhood is tired of trying. 

My womanhood wears me between strands of 

un-plucked eyebrows and un-shaven armpits, praised 

for being “all-natural,” but still not saved from 

the measurement of an admirer’s gaze

My womanhood is not on display. 

My womanhood wears me like a roadmap of stretch marks 

mimicking the way my capillaries internally lay 

left behind, forgotten pieces of a puzzled picture,

reminders of the person trapped inside of me 

My womanhood is not free. 

My womanhood wears me in the blisters of my high-heeled shoes

sore, scabbed over from being expected to walk confidently 

while in pain 

My womanhood should not be in pain, yet 

My womanhood wears me overwhelmed 

by weight too impossible to carry on shoulders that 

are just starting to become strong enough 

to bear it 

Instead of my womanhood wearing me, 

I should wear my womanhood, but 

to be a woman means to embrace 

all of your contradictions, 

which only now 

I am 

beginning 

to see.