Feet tread carefully on a path that has been
Planned and paved for three hundred years.
Etched into the stones of their lives and mine,
Only the weight of water could save some,
So, what will do I have stop it now?
There is no wave to wash away a journey from which we’ve never returned,
No flood can erase words that are written on the skin before our conception.
And if the tide cannot undo it, what hope do I have in my black breast?
The sweetness of milk gives life as much as water gave,
Without the risk of ebbing, it away,
It has given life to the Pathmaker,
Filling up their cups and dripping down their lips
While they form new walkways for us ‘wayward’ women.
Till we tiptoe on the finest of lines, take the smallest of steps,
Only the slightest of breaths.
How deep are the depths of uncertainty when I cannot stray?
Cannot escape pain in pictures and paint.
Cannot wash history and present out of the marrow.
Cannot find new paths amongst the old routes…
Yet let the sweetness of our milk hold me together
Satiate my hunger for a moment longer
To forage through a history that holds no truth
And choose a path that is solely mine.