Foreword
Fields of Womanhood is an appreciation poem I wrote as a response to my growing body hair. As women, we’re often taught that having hair is ugly or unhygienic (but not for men, right?). We’re expected to pay the pink tax and get on with our hairless lives. But the thing is we’re being given remedies for a problem that doesn’t exist.
I, and many other women I know, usually begin slacking on those remedies when it gets cold outside. It just doesn’t seem all that necessary to get waxed when you’re dressing for coverage and stressing about midterms, and this is especially true if no one is seeing your fuzzy bits, or the person who is just doesn’t care (thanks, babe). Still, even when we grow it out, we regard it with resentment, as though it shouldn’t be there.
The point of this poem is to push all that negativity aside for a moment: it’s to consider the way we treat our hair, and the way she treats us. I began writing Fields of Womanhood as my personal attempt to get more comfortable being my most honest and unaltered self. My goal was to find beauty in my fuzz and to give much-deserved recognition to my natural body. Now, although I still feel awkward about it sometimes, I can honestly say I’ve grown to love myself more for it. So give this a read and give your fuzz a little love.
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Fields of Womanhood
She is named the fields of womanhood,
And she grows and grows and grows.
She makes poppies of remembrance,
And then we cut the seeds she sows.
She is of strong will and sound mind,
Like lemon juice and lavender.
She is beauty and resilience,
On every day of every calendar.
She stands like an ovation,
And sits like dew on hemp leaves.
She treads on every square inch,
Of every lily and her valleys.
She is natural and nautical;
Like a worn ship atop the ocean.
She is soft like flower petals,
And comforting calamine lotion.
She is splashed between our hips,
Like cupcakes and calories.
She adorns us like precious jewels.
She is art, and we are her galleries.
Dyed the color of lapis lazuli;
She is strands of royalty and truth.
She is wise and unruly,
As though the old regained their youth.
She was meant, she was purposed,
Like the moon and her evening glow.
An amassing of velvet curtains,
Draped over a sweet and timeless show.
I see her in the sunshine,
On legs kissed by summer’s breeze.
I feel her hiding under covers,
Just to tickle on my knees.
She is curled, unkempt, unravaged,
So she is kind, and she is warm.
She protects, and holds, and cares for;
She is the port in every storm.
She is rusted silk perfection,
On a milky upper lip.
She is ninety percent cocoa,
Under an emerald satin slip.
She is sexy, silent, stylized,
The negativity is subliminal.
Even when she’s wild and unrefined,
Never doubt that she is tasteful.
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