On the Ownership of Female Sexuality: “A Wanting Woman”

I mostly write articles. I write about books and feminist topics and sometimes, I like to write about silly ways to up your oatmeal game. But other times, I dabble in poetry. I haven’t really properly published any of that before, though. So I figured, why not give it a go? “A Wanting Woman” explores questions of ownership, slut-shaminng, objectifying and female sexuality. Think portrayals of female sexuality in film. Think Madonna-whore comlpex. Think of the idea of sluts and prudes. Think the changing yet narrow conventions within which female sexuality is accepted, from marriage to porn. Think ownership of female sexuality.

A Wanting Woman

And suddenly, there is a blast of bright-red and nerve-endings                                                                           

Ignited in the pit of my stomach and I’m ecstatic and I’m terrified 

                      We need to put this thing into chains.                                                                                                              

Milky-way born from Hera’s milk

Enthralling and explosive

Extatic, almost bacchanalian

My body, a night club built of meteorites, starlight, 

young, restless constellations 

                      You see how this could be dangerous, don’t you?

Goddess-like and altogether timeless

Up-down, restless, borderline hysteric in their passions         

Now chained in corsets and petticoats, now Victoria’s Secret and rose petals                                                                                

                      I present to you                  

                      a beast clothed like a lady                                                                                                                  

                      ​it’s all ready for your consumption, mister                                          

Never, never named my own.  

My heart is bleary and filled with wrinkled waves of shameful desire

An over-ripened apricot                                                                                                                       

My rounded shape remains ever-present and lonely.

                      But we don’t want that for you, love, do we?

I used to yearn for Achilles, the son of Thetis, and later, Wilde-isque witty men, sharp-tongued women,

androgynous flesh, ripened in divine wetlands. Knights, pop-stars and shamans.

Treacherous, divine or loyal. In retrospect, it’s all the same                                                                                                                                   

it’s all debarred.

                      We’re only trying to protect you.                                                                             

Look, feel free to judge me but

I might as well dare to eat the damn peach.

Then, next night, return to my vulture-eyed solitude

Bitter, spent and altogether bankrupt.

                      You’re a slut.                     

And yet this ancient force, this untamed beast, demands to be heard                                            

Slipping through the cracks and the chains and the shame and–

To want and to be woman                                                                                                                 

They’ve told is the worst thing of all.