When I have gumption
I’m the woman I want to be.
And not just the woman I want to be,
but the woman I want to see
On the screen, magazine,
Talking to me freely
Not selling Pantene or the dream
Of tight jeans that don’t squeeze
A Queen
Like India.arie
When she sings
“I’m not the average girl from your video,
I ain’t built like a supermodel
but I’ve learned to love myself unconditionally…”
That’s the woman I want to be.
When I have gumption I am gracious and kind,
grateful, divine
But direct
Don’t expect, A consolation prize
Cause I’ve been there before
Been walked to my door
And it was easier to relent
With a kiss
Than say no.
Was easier to give false hope
Than say “go”
But that was a lack of gumption
You know something?
There was not one man who deserved my attention,
much less
My retention
In the religion of his lanky locks.
Late night calls
And emotional blocks
Around any thought of
Two souls caught up in love
That was not was this was
This arrangement between us.
When I have gumption I speak up
Just because I want to be heard
Every thought, every word
In a suit or a skirt
I deserve
your brain
Not just your gaze
But I’ll take them both
Cause this body’s not go-ing
Anywhere
So if you get distracted because I’m a girl
With breasts made for milk
And hips built for birth
And eyes set for sensing the danger ahead
If you get so distracted
You can’t hear what I’ve said
Then I’ll say it again
And I’ll say it once more
You’re gonna get used to a girl on the floor
Cause I have gumption
And I have teeth
And a tongue to articulate
My freedom of speech
A woman incensed
Is a woman who knows
There is power in passion,
In suffering, in woe
Cause the pain of the earth
Will not stop only grows
The longer we keep our sisters enclosed
In a cage sitting pretty
While their spirits are starved
Where greed, lust, and envy
Ratchet their hearts
It’s a media frenzy
Best dressed of the stars
Look at her thigh gap showing!
Look at her jiggly arm!
She’s a slutty homewrecker
She belongs on the farm
Next week they’ll forget her
Last week they were charmed.
And the lady can’t win
Photoshopped or not
Cause a woman’s deflections
Can always be caught
And thrown back in her face
And streaked through her hair
She’s not woman enough
She’s too smart, she’s not fair
She’s a feminist, fat
too tomboy to play
In this world of Real Barbies
And Louboutin slaves
It’s not our gumption that constrains us
That’s for damn sure
It’s coquettish, innocent, ingenue-y, demure
It’s the seen and not heard
Second sex of the world
It’s the the lines that he blurred
It’s the war on the girl
I am fighting for gumption
To spread like a cure
Infect every woman with the strength to be heard
To say what she’s feeling
To say what she’s learned
To start up her healing
Salve all of the burns
Branded into her skin
That she never deserved
But took on in silence
Without saying a word
The abuse and
To speak of the violence
She had to endure
Because someone decided
Her soul wasn’t pure
These stories are hiding
In the girls all around us
There are teardrops threatening
To engulf, overwhelm us
I’m a woman who cries before she gets livid
Who believes in compassion
Who believes in forgiveness
But until we speak up
Until we make it our business
To share what we’ve suffered
To insist
To bear witness
To the girlhood extinguished
To the woman reduced
Until we untie our secrets
Until we cut off the noose
That makes us the weak ones
When we know we are strong
That breaks us and bleeds us
That makes us feel wrong
Wrong to feel angry, wrong to be bold
Wrong to resist, to not do as we’re told
Until our stories are central
Not special interest
Until we believe that our bodies aren’t a curse, but a gift
Until we conceive of a womanly bliss
That transcends the devil, the garden, the hiss
Of the snake that man wrote
Tempted Eve to her shame
Until we dismiss that we are to blame
And decide that we’re done with the strangling chain
That encircles our voices
And makes us behave
We will not find freedom
We will not have our say
I am fighting for gumption
I am aligning with peace
I am deciding to practice
What my heart wants to preach
I will tell my true story
Cause it needs to be told
To shake up the system
To set free my soul
And I promise to listen
To every woman, child, man
Who accepts the brave mission
To do what they can
To make our world better, more caring, more just
To use their whole goodness
To seek out true love
To encourage the gumptious among us to run with their torches illuming
The truth from the lies
To let out the laughter, the grief and the cries
So bring on your sighing, your singing, your voices.
The world needs your gumption
The world needs its girls.
