“Caring hands, gentle, loving — the first touch on the touchdown to earth. The first cheeks to touch the young downy ones and the first arms to hold close.
Tresses are getting longer, and then the comb comes biting a bit and clearing the clogs, but then I do not feel the pain because those are the hands that care, give warmth, and hold me close.
Just barely growing, playing and laughing, and getting back to the arms that care — soon skin is glowing with a fresh wash and a tummy that is full — with what those hands have cooked and placed in front of me. It is always delicious just because it is those hands that made them, that served them.
Walking, I follow and ask not where, for isn’t that my sojourn, my safe place, and those the hands that care?
Comes a day when those hands are combing the dark tresses, then they are not dark anymore, for those hands have decided to make them red, or perhaps this time blonde.
Do I ask why? Why should I ask for those are the trusted hands….?
And why oh why, are my cheeks painted, and my young innocent lips turned a bright red? A red that matches the brightness that has become my tresses.
And when those hands dress me and make me glow like a lamp — still, there are no doubts or questions.
Then, the hands take me, and I go.
Into a room or two
Day in and day out
That is what I do.
And the hands guide me, teach me.
A way of life that I would not have chosen.
For the new me, the not-innocent me looks behind, and there on the side table lays the book or books – covered in grub – that would have opened other doors for me.
Doors?
Doors of life that do not kill the inner me or make me ashamed to look at me.
I wipe the books.
The grub is now on me forever.
For now, that I have grown beyond my years, I know what I have become.
Those hands that pushed me into the first room – that I will never forgive or forget.
I am still young in years; my eyes lift up and search for other hands that may take me away from those who made me what I have become. Hands that will help me find my books and find me.”
For every woman or girl who had no choice – on women’s day or perhaps on girls’ day, that she might become the woman she wants to be.
#women #equality
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