For Colored Girls

I haven’t written in a bit while and someone asked me and my answer was that I lacked inspiration. Well, I was watching this movie that I had picked up, ‘For colored girls’, and 10 minutes into the flick, my inspiration was back! Switched on the lights and took my notebook and pencil out.

This movie has an all black/colored girl cast with Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise and a host of others, which tells you its worth the time.
This is like being at a SLAM event because there is so much emotion in the words these women utter.
Black women go through so much but we stand by what we believe whether it’s good for us or not.

There are so many characters portrayed by these women and I feel I can identify with more than one of them; the woman “on-top”, the abused woman, the one with her dreams playing out, the one who has dreams of a future but they are slowly being crushed, the whore, the crazed mother, the one who preaches but doesn’t do….

“This is for colored girls who have considered suicide but are moving on to the end of their rainbows”

This caught my attention and I tried to paraphrase as little as possible:

“Sleeping with all these men thinking its just sex
It aint just sex, honey, it has a root
And you have got to find that root to pluck it!
At 4.30 AM you rise moving the arms and legs that trapped you
You make a bath of musk water to remove his smell;
To wash away the glitter,
To watch the butterflies melt into suds and the rhinestones fall beneath your buttocks like smooth pebbles in a Missouri River
Lying in water, you become yourself; ordinary, brown braided woman with big legs and full lips.
Regular
And those who fall prey to the dazzle of hips painted with orange blossoms and magnolia scented wrists
That wanted no more than to lay between her sparkling thighs
And had planned on leaving before dawn.
And when you finish writing your account of her exploit in a diary embroidered with lilies and moonstones,
You place the rose behind your ear and cry yourself to sleep
I used to be you.”


So I watch this movie and I cry my eyes out because there is so much endurance and emotion that these women go through! I cry for lost love, for all the times I have had to hold and keep my emotions at bay because it is expected of me.

I loved this because it represents each and every woman, for all the times that we have almost given ourselves up for promises and for belief….

“Somebody almost walked off with all of my stuff!
And dint care enough to send a note home saying
I was late for my own solo conversation
Or two sizes too small for my own tacky skirts
What can anybody do with something of no value on an open market?
Did you get a dime for my things?
Hey man! Where are you going with all of my stuff?!
This is a woman tripping!
I need my stuff to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ about
Honest to God, somebody almost ran off with all of my stuff
And I dint bring anything but the kick and sway of it;
The perfect ass for my man and none of it is theirs!
This is mine! Anne’s own things
That’s my name.
Now give me my stuff!!

I see you hiding my laugh
And how I sit sometimes with my legs open to give my crotch some sunlight
This is some delicate leg and whimsical kiss
I have got to have to give to my choice
So you can’t have me unless I give me away
And I was doing all that till you ran off from a good thing

And who is this you left me with?
Some simple bitch with a bad attitude!
I want my things. I want my own with the hot iron scar
I want my leg with the flea bag
I want my things!
I want my calloused feet and quick language back in my mouth
I want my own things how I love them

Somebody almost ran off with all of my stuff and I was just standing there looking at my stuff the whole time!
It wasn’t a spirit that ran off with my stuff,
It was a man whose ego walked around like Rodham’s shadow
It was a man faster than my innocence
It was a lover I made too much room for
I almost ran off with all my stuff
And the one running with it don’t know he got it
Am shouting, “This is mine!” and he doesn’t even know he got it!
My stuff is the anonymous ‘ripped off treasure of the year’
Do you know somebody almost got away with me?
Me, in a plastic bag under his arm
Me, Anne, somebody almost walked off with all of my stuff.”


While writing this, I hold on to the fact that “am sorry’s” don’t need to impact on my life coz my love is too beautiful to be thrown back to my face!
This is for all the women, for all the love in your hearts that sometimes goes unappreciated and un-mirrored, you love you and that should mean the world to you.