#025 Nekhena Evans, 2000

This poem made me cry when I first read it. 

Nekhena Evans is an author, poet, producer, speaker, and founder of NewBein' Hair Care Product line.

www.newbein.com

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AND I CALL MYSELF A WOMBMAN

How can I become a "Wombman"

when I don't know my womb?

I have never had a conversation with my womb

so how can I consider myself a Wombman?

I have been with you...grown with you,

been through Rites of Passage with you

from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood, and yet...

I have never had a conversation with you.

You have been a victim. A consequence to an action. 

A symptom of a disease. 

An effect of my action.

I have never spoken to you. Consulted with you. 

Inquired of you. Cared for you.

Or understood you.

And I call myself a grown Wombman.

Where have I grown? How could I have grown without talking with you?

Without acknowledging your presence and your works?

And I call myself a Wombman.

I have put you through dozens of men...

alien spirits/beings/entities...of all dimensions,

from all places and stations.

I have created and destroyed babies through you.

I have fed you all kinds of poisons, thereby creating diseases---

fibroids, tumors, cysts, and the like.

I have sexually abused you, thereby creating sexually transmitted diseases...

infections of all types, itching...burning...hurting...PAIN!

I have used you for my own purposes...

money, favors, alleged self-esteem, beauty, clothing, food.

I have allowed men to probe you, 

doctors to drug you, while I held you down.

If I had known someone who had done all these things

I would call them the names I despise the most-

MURDERER, THIEF, LIAR, BETRAYER, DEMON.

Yes I would...

And I call myself a Wombman,

Time to release. RELEASE, RELEASE.

FORGIVE ME. FORGIVE ME. FORGIVE ME.

I am complete.

I will be responsible for you, for myself...for my womb. 

We are in relationship together.

We have been from the very, very beginning.

I will commune and communicate with you. 

I will listen to you.

I will wash, cleanse, and purify you. 

I will pay attention to your patterns, your moods, your signs and wonders.

I will...I will...I will...become the Wombman that you made

me from the beginning.  

written in Queen Afua's Sacred Woman: A Guide to Healing the Feminine Body, Mind, and Spirit, 2000.