Recently
I’ve been letting my body hair grow and
Flow through my skin
I’ve watched my armpit hairs flourish and beam with delight at the sight and the feeling of being left alone, grown and growing and glowing with promise of peace and ease and
I didn’t do this as a conscious choice
It wasn’t a feminist statement
I wasn’t marking the makings of a revolutionary by seeing how far my pubic hair could travel, journeying past my bikini line to meet my thighs with sighs of relief
This choice was born out of depression, laziness and one really long long winter.
A winter that’s now spanned into years of not shaving and my body hair behaving in it’s natural way, in any way that it pleases.
And that’s okay
Often people look at me and say
‘Wow, you’re such a brave Black feminist, such a revolutionary, an activist through your lack of confirming and ‘norming’ to appease the normies degrees of eurocentric beauty standards’ and sometimes I agree.
It wasn’t a conscious choice
But maybe that’s part of it
Maybe getting to a point in my life where I felt comfortable enough to let my body hair just be, instead of cutting and primming and shaving and subjecting the curves and lines of my body to the trauma of blades and tweezers and waxes - all designed to make me a better woman in the eyes of a man - maybe that was revolutionary
Accidental Activism
Because now
My rule of thumb is
Anyone who doesn’t like my hair… doesn’t like me in my natural form… doesn’t deserve me.
My prickly nipples and my arrogantly lush bed of armpit hair and my soft folds are a test for those who come into contact with my body
And those who accept me for who I am
I consider giving access to this temple of divine being
For I am done changing myself for the external validation of others
And as I come to the end of this poem
I realise
Maybe I didn’t mean to be revolutionary,
Maybe I just wanted to be a girl at peace with her body.
But I am a fucking revolutionary
Whether I like it or not.
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