Questions for Ada

by Ijeoma Umebinyuo

A God as woman as me My sins as painful as hers.

One day, your bones will get weary of men who refuse to worship the God in you On that day, you will either slit your soul or gather your spirit, leaving any man who has never called you Holy.

Your mother was your first mirror. Tell me, didn’t she carry herself well enough to make you feel like a God?

I did not know the bodies of women were meant to be a museum of tragedies, as if we were meant to carry the ocean without drowning

You must remember to hold yourself on days that feel so empty the pain echoes.

The way women are told to carry pain in their bones frightens me.

You call me “sister” not because you are my blood but because you understand the kind of tragedies we both have endured to come back into loving ourselves again and again.

Forgive me, father but sometimes my God is a woman crying in the shower begging for another God to lift her burden.

I don’t think you understand some chose life last night even if they never tell you, they just killed their demons to live this morning.